East
by princesswingnut
Summary: ."Here's a short list of things that are considered unacceptable behavior at a wedding: screaming. Sobbing uncontrollably. Throwing champagne glasses. Getting in a violent slap-fight with the bride. Strangling the groom." LEAH FIC. Compass Points series.
1. Chapter 1

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Apparently, I can't seem to get enough of these secondary-character-runs-off-to-find-adventure-and-self-actualization stories, so here's another one :). All of it is going to be pretty AU, so apologies for any canon inconsistencies, and yes. Here we go.

--

In case you were wondering, here is a short list of things that are considered unacceptable behavior at a wedding: screaming. Sobbing uncontrollably. Throwing champagne glasses. Getting in a violent slap-fight with the bride. Strangling the groom.

Don't worry, I didn't do any of these things. I'm not a _total _bitch, I'm not going to ruin someone's wedding day. Even though, if you want to get technical, it actually should have been _my _wedding day. Seeing as the man I loved was up at the altar, the man who had looked me in the eyes and told me every day for years that he loved me and would rather die without me—well, if that man was at the altar, doesn't it just make sense that I would be the one standing across from him?

Yeah, I wish. Things don't always work so logically in our freaky-deaky world. Hooray for being a werewolf, right? Look at these cool claws and teeth I got! Look how fast I can run! Look at this great opportunity to support and protect the human race! Well, guess what I had to give up in return? In exchange for all these fabulous impossibilities, I had to give up Sam.

Let me tell you, it was not a good trade.

I only shift into werewolf form when Sam expressly commands me to. I like being a wolf, and I have no desire to deny what I am, it's just that, for me—there are issues. The biggest of which is the whole thought-sharing thing. Just try to imagine it—the love of your life leaves you for your cousin, and if that isn't bad enough, he also gets to hear every single thought in your head. Every time you catch yourself watching him, every time you remember the day you went hiking in the cliffs and he pulled you up from the ledge and you grabbed onto him to keep yourself from falling and your faces were suddenly too close, and he pulled you just that last bit closer and kissed you. He gets it all. He gets to know when you think about him, and how pathetically not over him you really are.

It sucks. No, it worse than sucks. At least when I'm in human form, I can watch him without him knowing—the way he looks in a tuxedo, the clean lines of the black against his burnt-caramel skin. His smile, so absolutely perfectly happy as he looks at her—at least when I'm human, he can't know how much I hate that he's happy. That I hate that he can be as happy with her as he ever was with me. That he can be happier.

Seriously, you have no idea how much it sucks. The weight of it has crushed me over the years, like that Japanese execution where they put a heavy stone on your chest and it slowly breaks your ribs, flattens your lungs. I have twisted out of shape. I used to be nice. No, don't act so surprised, I used to be. I used to be fun and cute and pleasant—the kind of girl that Sam would fall in love with.

These days, I'm reduced to being the bitter ex sitting at the back table in the corner, frowning tightly and drinking champagne by the bottle. I looked in the mirror the other day, and guess what? I'm starting to get frown lines. Seriously. Frown lines at nineteen. Sam, on the other hand, is starting to get feathery little smile lines at the edges of his eyes. Lines from smiling at her so much, and so happily.

I'd been doing a great job of avoiding killing anyone tonight, but when Jacob came up behind me, I swear I nearly jumped him. I don't like people sneaking up on me.

"Having fun?"

"Jeez, Jacob!" I slugged him in the shoulder—maybe a little hard, but he was lucky he wasn't getting worse. "You scared me to death!"

"Sorry," Jacob said, entirely unapologetic. "I guess you _were _concentrating a little hard. In fact, it kind of looked like you were trying to shoot lasers from your eyes. Any particular target?"

Of course there was. He knew that. Everybody knew that, because everybody was freakin' _in my head. _I swear, you don't really appreciate privacy until it's gone. "Oh, I can think of a few people," I said as lightly as I could. "Better watch out or you'll be getting some lasers of your own, Jacob Black."

"Yeah, way to drive away the only person who's talked to you all night." He said it in a teasing tone, but it stung a little because, ugh, it was true. Hate that.

"They just feel awkward talking to me," I said, "because I'm the awkward ex-girlfriend that no one really wants here. I'm the embarrassing past." I could see Jacob squirming as I said it. This was one of my favorite tricks—bringing up uncomfortable truths. Never, ever letting anyone forget the things that they wanted to forget. Heck, I figured the more time they spent squirming, the less time they were eavesdropping on my dead remnants of my love life.

"Okay, then," he said quietly. Not many people still made the effort to try to with me anymore—Jacob was one of the few who did, but even he had his limits. No one wanted to hang around a bitter, angry buzzkill. "You have a good night, Leah."

"Not going to happen, Jacob," I sent after him as he walked away. Really? A good night? I was watching my cousin marry the man I loved. I was suffocating. I was choking on my own anger and it tasted like copper, like smoke and blood.

I put my head on the table, trying to fight a headache and homicidal thoughts. Why had I come here? Was I crazy? Why did I come to Sam's wedding? Oh yeah. Because he'd asked me. He didn't love me, didn't even like to look at me—but still he could ask me to jump off a building and oh, I would do it. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic.

I felt a hand lightly tap my shoulder, and I groaned. Couldn't they just leave me to die? Really, I was okay with being ignored. I really was. "Jacob, go away!" I snapped, turning on him—only it wasn't Jacob. "_Sam._" I breathed his name like a lovesick preteen, practically swooning at his touch. God, why could he _do _this to me? Quickly, I injected a double dose of sarcasm and venom into voice, just in case he was getting the impression that I was in love with him, or something. "What the hell do you want?"

"Well," he said, in that careful neutral voice that he always used with me. The Leah Voice. The one that said he couldn't care less about me, that every feeling for me had been erased and replaced by a freak bit of werewolf genetics—but that he did feel a little sorry about that. "I wanted to ask you to dance."

"Oh." It was like when someone punches you—you didn't expect and you're kind of stunned, and all you can do is try to react. "Okay."

He took my hand and pulled me through the round tables onto the floor, and I tried to keep myself from shaking uncontrollably or passing out. That could be embarrassing. See, this was why I got so angry all the time. Because I was _stupid. _I had _stupid _emotions and _stupid _emotions and it made me _mad. _I did not like to be out of control of myself. I didn't like to look like an idiot. So when I got stupid and fluttery, I reacted even harder in the other direction, trying to obliterate my own weakness with a flash flood of anger. So I ended up angry a lot. Very bad for the blood pressure.

"How are you?" he asked as he pulled me into a waltz step. When had Sam learned to waltz?

"Fine," I lied. He smelled like soap and woodsmoke. I remembered. "How are you? You and Emily look—nice."

"Doesn't she look gorgeous?" Ah, the utter obliviousness of the imprinted. The instant I mentioned his darling beloved, there went all his sensitivity, right out the window. "I swear, Leah, this is the happiest day of my life. I mean, people say that all the time, but you have no idea."

"No, Sam. No I don't."

"It's unbelievable," Sam gushed. Completely oblivious. "It's like—being blind and then suddenly getting your sight back. It's like being in pieces and suddenly you're just…whole. She's just so beautiful and smart, Leah, she's so perfect. This is the best day of my life."

Pain: noun. Physical suffering or distress, as in injury or illness. Example: listening to your ex-boyfriend go on and on endlessly about how wonderful another girl is. When people experience pain, their actions often become erratic and irrational, as their body tries to figure out how to stop the pain through any means possible. This is really the only explanation I can think of for why I said what I said next. "Listen, Sam, I wanted to tell you something."

He broke from his Emily-induced trance, paying a little bit of attention to me for once. "What is it?"

Yeah, Leah, what is it? What do you think you're doing, Leah? What, exactly, do you plan on saying now? "I'm moving."

_That _got his attention. "You're what?"

Too late to stop now. Lies were like runaway trains—at some point, you have to stop trying to control them and just get out of the way. "I'm moving. To England." I felt lightheaded—how much champagne had I drank, anyway?

"You are?" Surprise, and—did I detect a little bit of relief? Here came the anger.

"As a matter of fact, I am," I snapped. "I—wanted to go see the werewolves that we heard about. You know—the real ones. My mom said someone should try to make contact with them—"

"She said nothing of the kind. Leah, for all we know they could be dangerous! We don't know anything about them!"

"Well, how do you think we're going to learn?" I said briskly. I had to extract myself from this situation _now, _before he gave me any of those Alpha commands he'd been throwing around lately. Technically this wasn't detrimental to the pack, and probably it would be very good for me. Get out of the country, go somewhere—good Lord, what was I _saying? _I'd never been out of La Push in my life! What was I getting myself into? "I'm um—leaving tomorrow morning. Congratulations on your marriage!"

I pulled myself out of the waltz before he could give me an order, or look at me with those damnably pretty eyes. It was a crazy idea but maybe it was a good one. If I was in a place where I couldn't look him in the eyes without melting, maybe I _needed _to leave. I just—really couldn't be that girl.

I passed my mother on the way out, chatting easily with Billy Black, smiling the way I used to smile. Happy. Uncomplicated. "Honey?" she said, turning as I blew by her. "Where are you going?"

I paused long enough to look back at her, but I didn't stop. Momentum was very important for me right now—I already felt a hangover coming on, and also there was a good chance I was going to cry. This, as you'll recall, was on the list of unacceptable wedding behaviors. "Um," I said. "Europe. I'm going to Europe, Mom."

"I'm sorry. You're what?"

"I'm going to Europe," I repeated. "It's…kind of hard to explain."


	2. Chapter 2

I'll admit, I hadn't thought this through very well.

I mean, on some levels it made sense. I did need to get away from Sam. I had become essentially a punchline, a footnote in his epic romance, and I had become very, very mean. I did not like who I was, and not that I was blaming him exactly, but he was essentially the catalyst. He was the problem, in the sense that I had problems when I was around him. So I was leaving. I should have done it a long time ago. I should have left the day I walked into my house two years ago and found Sam kissing my cousin like she was the last woman on Earth. Besides, I had always planned to take a year off after graduating, maybe backpack Europe. Of course, tracking down lost supernatural werewolf cousins had never exactly been part of the plan.

Another thing I hadn't taken into consideration: flying. Like I said, I've never been away from La Push before—half a day in Seattle was as wide as my worldview had ever gotten. And you don't take a plane to Seattle.

I was gripping the armrests so hard that my knuckle-bones stood out white under my skin, trying to convince myself that this huge, heavy metal tube _did, _actually, have a chance of staying in the air. I wasn't having a lot of success—it's often difficult to convince yourself of things that don't logically make sense. Like planes staying in the air.

"Hey," said the guy sitting next to me. I had barely noticed him before, but now that I looked he was pretty cute. I was always slightly less likely to pick up on these things, post-Sam. Maybe I hadn't imprinted on him, but there were still a lot of stories to back up the idea that there was one true love for a person and no one else, ever. Even Shakespeare wrote one—and that had to count for something, right? "Are you okay?" he asked me. Cute _and _concerned, and he even had a British accent. Too bad I wasn't much into blonds. I was more of a brown-hair girl. Okay, so I was a brown-haired, brown-eyed, six-feet-two-inches…Sam Uley kind of girl.

"No," I told him honestly. No harm in flirting, right? I wondered if I remembered how. "Apparently I—don't like flying."

"You've never flown before?" Cute smile—kind of crooked and playful. "Where do you live?"

"La Push."

I didn't expect him to recognize it—we had, what, a couple thousand people within the borders, tops?—but he tipped his head sideways and smiled wider. "The reservation?"

"Yeah," I said, frowning. "Have you been there?"

"Not exactly," he said vaguely. "Sorry, I'm Ryan Glass. I didn't catch your name."

"Leah Clearwater," I said, shaking his hand, and as I spoke I could feel his hand tense under mine—I looked up and saw the muscles going tight in his face, tightening with—what? Recognition? What the hell, it wasn't like I was Britney Spears—why in the world would anyone know _my _name?

His face smoothed in the next second, and—yeah, I'd probably just imagined it. Seriously, how self-centered could I get? Thinking that he recognized my _name. _"Leah, nice to meet you. Where are you headed?"

"London." Translation: the only place I could get a ticket to on twelve-hour notice.

"No kidding? I live there!" And he turned and told me about the way London smells when it rains, the places to go when it's late at night and nothing is open, which art galleries to skip and which to go to at eleven in the morning, right before lunch. He smiled very crookedly as he spoke, and it was very cute.

--

"I know a hotel," Ryan said as we sat side by side and waited for our luggage to come down the black conveyor belt.

"Excuse me?" Did I look like some kind of cheap slut? I wasn't wearing _that _much eyeliner, was I? "Are you serious?"

"No, no, no," he said quickly, horrified. "I didn't mean—I just thought that you might need some help finding—I mean, these hotels by the airport, they'll rip you off. I just wanted to help." A perfect gentleman.

Now I was all suspicious and keyed up, but I did feel a little bad for jumping on him like that. _Come on, Leah. Not everyone in the world is trying to kill or seduce you. Especially not seduce you. _"That would be—really nice. Thank you."

"Is it okay if I drive you? My car is right out in the parking garage—but I don't want to make you uncomfortable—"

For a normal small, American female, this would have been a stupid offer to take. A strange guy offers to give you a ride home in a car, to a hotel you've never seen, in a city you've never visited? Obviously very stupid—unless, of course, you happen to be a werewolf. There really wasn't a lot that I was afraid of, and definitely not some random blond British guy with a Rolex watch and bedroom eyes. "Sure, Ryan," I said, giving him my best approximation of a warm smile. "That sounds great."

--

"Ryan," I said after twenty minutes. "Where is this hotel, exactly?" Granted, I didn't know a lot about downtown London, but it really seemed to me like we had passed the hotel district.

"It's right up here," he said in that chipper, clipped British accent. If he did actually turn out to be a psycho killer, he had a fairly good racket going—basically built on the cornerstone of him being pretty nice and really, really attractive. It's much easier to trust attractive people, it's just a fact of life. Guy _that _pretty, couldn't _possibly _be a psycho killer, right? Not _him. _Yeah, well, that remained to be seen. "A few more streets."

"Riiiight," I said. I wasn't really big on subtlety. It wasn't really my—thing. Even before the great Sam Schism of '06, I had _never _been big on subtlety. Which was the explanation for why I just came right out and said, "So, are you planning to murder me, or what?"

He laughed, and thank God it wasn't a creepy psycho-killer laugh. Just a pleasant, lightly British laugh, genuinely amused—which was pretty reassuring, actually, that he thought killing me was a hilarious joke. "Not hardly, Leah Clearwater."

Okay, _that _was creepy. "Why are you saying my name like that?" I said, my voice going sharp, naturally hostile.

"Saying it like what?"

"I don't know," I said, frustrated. "Like it means something."

"You don't think you mean anything?" he asked, politely inquiring—and unnecessarily gentle, that pitying tone I'd learned to live with and still really hated.

"I don't think there's anything particularly fascinating or different about me," I argued. When had this become a psych examination? I was damaged goods, everyone knew that. So what? I had learned to deal.

He smiled that crooked smile, still staring straight ahead at the road with the streetlights flashing against the windshield, fragmenting onto his face. "You're wrong."

I was seconds away from shifting and biting his arm off. He was _seriously _creeping me out now, pretty eyes or no. But before I could do anything rash or reasonable, he was turning—pulling into a parking lot on the right side of the road, a lot in front of a subdued shopfront and a small sign that said _Lycaon _in red cursive neon. "It's not a hotel," I said flatly. "Shocker."

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said easily, shutting the door behind him, crossing around the other side to open mine for me. _Such _a gentleman. "Come on, I just want to show you something."

I gave him my best frigid-bitch look—the one I used when I wanted to send people running screaming away from me. It had a less than desirable effect this time, as Ryan pretty much just kept standing there, politely holding my door. "Are you serious?"

"Come on," he said, grinning. "It's not like you can't tear me apart if I try anything."

This should have alarmed me, but call me crazy, I was a little intrigued. I had come here looking for true werewolves and hey, maybe they'd come to me. What were the chances? Either way, he was right—I _could _tear him apart, and maybe the curiosity was enough to trade off for some danger. It had been awhile since I'd done _anything _that got my blood pumping this fast. I was used to stagnation—total flat boredom, day after day of grayness and general misery. Danger, at least, was interesting.

So I got out of the car. So what. I'm a werewolf. I can do dangerous things. So I followed him to the door, and then inside it as he opened it for me and beckoned me inside. So what.

Strobe and music hit me like a riptide, and I recognized it instantly—it was just a club. A dark and terraced club packed with a few too many people, too much smoke in the air and a little too much bass, but after all just a club. Not some kind of Venus Flytrap waiting to snap over me, just a stupid club. He probably just wanted to get me drunk, or something. How typical.

Instead of steering me toward the free drinks like I expected, though, Ryan stopped me in the doorway, turning me by my shoulders until I faced the whole room, looking out over the pulsing bodies lit over and over by the lights, lighting then darkening.

"Leah Clearwater," he said loudly, his voice rolling over the bass beats, the loud music—like an announcement, like an introduction. "Welcome to London."

Everyone stopped. Like they'd been flash-frozen, just stopped at the sound of my name. Even the music stopped, leaving echoing silence and darkness and people _staring _at me like there was something very wrong or very, very weird. Strobe lights still flashing on an off in perfect silence, and every person in the room still staring at _me. _

"Well," I said. "This is…awkward."


	3. Chapter 3

Perhaps this was what it was like being a celebrity. Your name having meaning—having the power to turn people's heads—knowing you without you ever knowing them. Of course, I'd never wanted to be a celebrity. It was actually pretty high on my list of Things To Never Do Ever, right after getting set on fire with a flamethrower. The thing about celebrity is, it's permanent. Once you get famous, you can never go back, you're just—famous for life. No way to take your name out of the public lexicon.

Usually, though, if you're famous, you know why. I had done nothing—I hadn't made any movies, hadn't stabbed any popular sports figures to death. I had just lived in a tiny Washington town for nineteen years of my life and then taken a plane to London. Where an inexplicable clubfull of people knew exactly who I was.

I pried Ryan's hands off my shoulder and shoved him backwards, glaring at him in a way that I hoped conveyed my absolute dangerousness. He knew I was a werewolf? Well, then, he should know that I was entirely capable of tearing his head off. "Ryan, what is going on?"

The crowd below had unfrozen a little at the edges, a few people climbing the steep spiral steps to the entrance platform, heading straight at me. Again, like being a famous person—and they didn't seem to mean any harm. They mostly seemed to want to shake my hand.

"Leah Clearwater?" One man was saying, grabbing my hand with both of his, warm and enthusiastic. "_The _Leah Clearwater? It is _so _nice to meet you."

"What?" I yelped, pulling my hand away. "Where did the 'the' come from? There is no 'the'! What is so interesting about me?"

Another man grabbed my hand, spinning me to face him as if at any second we might start to dance. It occurred to me suddenly that there were _only _men up here on the dais—in fact, I couldn't see any women at all, not here, not on the floor, not anywhere. "Surely you don't think we wouldn't know about you?" the second man said, as delighted as the first to meet me, this was _so _strange. "The only female werewolf in history?"

Aha. There we go. Things were still a little unclear, but at least all the basic parts had snapped into place now. Still weird to be so well-known, but—logical. "Okay, wait," I said, gesturing a finger at my sudden circle of admirers. "So…you're all—werewolves?"

"What, you don't read Latin?" Ryan said from behind me, pleased and amused. The smile had converted into a smirk, but still a sort of cute and pleasant one. Guy couldn't look threatening if his life depended on it. "Believe me, Leah, you're practically a cult figure here, we've known about you for _months._"

"But you know," I said honestly, prying my hand from yet another admiring handshake, "I'm not a _real _werewolf. It's different for us, it's—genetic." As long as I was going to be a werewolf cult hero or whatever, I felt that full disclosure was necessary.

"You're a distant cousin," Ryan waved my explanation away, cutting through the smoky air with his hand. "We've known about you for hundreds of years, we just never thought that strain of the werewolf gene was—important."

"Thanks a lot."

"No offense," he grinned. "And you'll have to excuse the boys, they're just a little—excited. The pure werewolf infection isn't capable of infecting women, so…our side of the family can't exactly reproduce."

I blinked. "_Excuse me?_"

"God, sorry," he said, ducking his head. "I didn't mean—"

"I know exactly what you mean," I said archly. "Don't worry, I'm not offended. It's almost flattering, or…something. And I spend a lot of time around guys, believe me, I understand."

"I heard that your pack communicates mind-to-mind," one young werewolf said earnestly. "Is that true?"

"I heard they're all big as a horse," another one chimed in. "Bigger than regular wolves. Are they bigger than regular wolves?"

"And what about imprinting?" asked a third. "Tell us about imprinting. _You're _not imprinted, are you?"

"No," I said with a small smile.

They all seemed very relieved.

--

Update on the celebrity thing: it was both better and worse than I thought it would be. The interest that everyone seemed to have in me was—I'll admit it—thrilling. In La Push, I was a pariah—a painful and embarrassing mistake. To have people pay _attention _to me, and _men _no less—well, that was something I hadn't ever expected again in my life. To be—what, a sex symbol? A larger-than-life legend? Wow. To be honest, it made me feel a little drunk, only without the hangover.

On the other hand, the downsides were exactly what I thought they would be—the most significant being a complete and total lack of privacy. After two hours of being crushed in on every side by admiring, overexcited werewolf men, I needed a little room to breathe. I pried myself free from the crowd, pleading bathroom break, and instead made a beeline straight for the bar. Alcohol. I needed alcohol. I felt so completely intoxicated already that I actually needed it to steady me, to ground me back down again. I needed something burning in my throat, like a pinch to make sure this all wasn't just a dream.

"Vodka on the rocks," I informed the bartender as I collapsed on the nearest stool. I was the only person at the bar—everyone was on the dais, of course, waiting for me to come back. "Actually, better make it double. Er—triple."

"I hope you have a designated driver," the man said wryly, flipping the bottle over in his hand, "and a strong liver."

"Hey, bartender, you're supposed to be selling me alcohol," I smiled sharply back at him. "Not issuing Surgeon General's warnings."

He shrugged, keeping his eyes on the vodka as he poured it. "You're pretty. Alcohol doesn't treat prettiness very well."

Normally this would have been a huge deal, the biggest compliment of my life. But tonight, after spending hours being told about how I was the most fabulous thing ever to happen in werewolf history, 'pretty' seemed a little—understated. "Do you—" I started, to ask, then hesitated. Because on the other hand, after years of being told I was a harpy and a bitch and not good enough to fall in love with—even 'pretty' was a little strong for me. "Do you know who I am?"

He looked straight at me for the first time, studying me for a few quick seconds, and I got a look at him, too—the flash of the strobe lights tracing his sharp jawline, his cheekbones. Brown hair, for what it was worth. "No," he said simply, going back to the vodka, capping it in one smooth twist. "Weird that you're a woman, though. Are you someone's date, or their dinner?"

"What? No! Gross!" They _ate _people here? Admittedly I didn't know much about these Children-of-the-Moon types, but—wasn't that more of a vampire habit? Then again, they did drive on the wrong side of the road here. "I'm Leah Clearwater."

"Ohhhh." He snapped a finger, sliding the shots across the black marble bar. I grabbed the first one and tossed it back, feeling it bite into my throat like gasoline and flame. "The American werewolf girl. Yeah, I've heard of you. You know every guy in this room wants to have a dozen little werewolf babies with you, right?"

"Ugh!" Possibly I hated this guy, and for the same reason people usually hated me—he kept telling me the truth. "Gross! Do you _mind_?"

"Hey, Weston," Ryan said calmly, sliding into the stood beside me. "Shut the hell up."

Surprisingly, he did. I hadn't pegged him as the submissive type, but the instant Ryan showed up, the smart mouth was gone. And—here was a thing so weird and obvious that I was shocked I hadn't noticed it before—he seemed to be…chained to the bar? It was a long chain, and fairly thin, but a _chain_, a full chain and a cuff locked around his left hand. Very, very weird. If your bartender hates his job _that _much, it's probably a good idea to get another employee. Chains are bad for morale.

"Sorry," Ryan said smoothly. "Spencer Weston. He's good for mixing drinks, but don't listen to a word he says. He really shouldn't be _speaking _to you at all."

"Ooookay," I drew out, raising my eyebrows because he couldn't see them in the dark. It was weird, but I wasn't going to ask—because Spencer Weston had told me at least one thing that these werewolves probably didn't want me to know. That these were not the kind of werewolves I was used to. Back home, we were shape-shifters, shaman warriors with a history of saving, being saved. We were called into existence to protect humans—and that wasn't what real werewolves did. Real werewolves did what normal wolves did—ate stuff. "Is he—"

"He won't bother you anymore," Ryan said firmly, pulling me up from the bar. "Come on, we miss you over there."

"Just a second," I told him, turning back to the bar—back to my vodka shots, one of which I grabbed and drank down. Fortification for returning to my adoring fans. The last shot, I slid back across the bar to Spencer—he caught it neatly and raised it as I moved away, silently toasting whatever it was, exactly, that I was getting myself into.


	4. Chapter 4

I had never been much of a partier. Of course, I hadn't been to college yet, so it could be argued that I had never _really _had the chance—never really taken the crash course in jello shots and table-dancing. Seriously, though, I don't think I have the personality for it. Waking up sprawled across the floor of with my head pillowed on my arm, lying in cigarette butts and broken beer bottles—I wasn't really so much into that. I was cottonmouthed and stiff-jointed, and the mother of all hangovers was opening like a morning glory inside my throbbing head.

I woke up because my cell phone was ringing. If it hadn't been, chances were I would have slept a good couple more hours—which, you know, wouldn't have been a bad thing, considering the hangover and all. So really, I was not happy with whoever was calling me on the phone.

"Hello?" I snapped—taking their head off at once, just as a precaution.

"Leah."

"Sam." I recognized the voice instantly. His voice was in my bones. But there would be no melting today, I was _pissed. _"_What? _Do you need something? Since when do you even have my number?"

"Well, if you would shift, I wouldn't have to call," he said calmly. Sam was always calm. It was one of the qualities that made him such a good leader, along with tactical awareness and studliness and really, really big shoulders. "We haven't heard from you since you left, Leah."

"And you probably won't. I'm in _London, _not La Push, I can't just shift all the time." And if I can help it, I won't. It's nice not having you in my head.

"Where are you?" Still worry in his voice, but he was doing the leader thing—gathering information from reconnaissance.

"The good news is they're not that hard to find," I told him matter-of-factly. I hoped he didn't ask me to come back. Even if he _didn't _use his Alpha voice, there as a good chance I would do it. And I didn't want to. I liked it here. Maybe it was different than what I was used to, but that was what was nice about it—because what I was used to was estrangement and unfriendliness. "I seem to have found their headquarters, I'm in it right now. There are more of them than we thought, Sam, there's at least forty or fifty werewolves in here." That's it, Leah, make it sound like a scouting expedition, not a wild drunken party.

"Leah, be careful," he said instantly, and part of my brain went, _oh, he's _worried _about me. _I was not in the mood for it—I gave that part of my brain a good swift kick and yelled at it to shut up. "These are not the kinds of people you're used to. I don't want you to be—around them all the time, okay?"

"They're perfectly nice," I argued. At least they sounded that way if I withheld the whole eating-people part. Minor detail, right? "I'm _fine, _Sam."

"I'm glad to hear it," he said, with a note of stubbornness to his voice that warned me of what he would say next, "but I'm sending you some backup."

"Backup? Saaaaaam," I groaned. Because really, who could he send that I wouldn't absolutely loathe? Not a single person came to mind. "Is this really necessary?"

"I think it is," he said firmly. "I agree with you now that this is an important connection for us to make, but I don't want you out there alone."

"Why, because I'm a girl?" I said unfairly. This was always a fun card to pull. In our oh-so-enlightened age of taboo sexism, usually the accusation was enough to make people jump back like they'd been burned. Or were about to be.

He didn't bite. "Because you're part of my pack. I'm putting Jacob on a plane tomorrow, okay?"

"Not okay, Sam!" _Jacob, _really? Ugh, what a buzzkill. "Definitely not okay!"

"Doesn't matter," Sam said evenly. "He's coming. Try not to get yourself killed until then."

"Yes, _sir._" I love you, sir. I hope your wife drives off a cliff and dies, sir. Yeah, you see what I mean about the person I am around him? It isn't good. "See you later."

I snapped the phone shut harder than strictly necessary. I went through a lot of cell phones—they just made them so little and breakable these days, and they just couldn't stand up to my anger, they really couldn't. I had a lot of anger, and a very small cell phone. This one survived, though, for a little bit longer. I shoved it back into my pocket and tried, experimentally, to make myself stand up.

Not such a smart idea—at least, judging from the instant supernovas bursting in my head, behind my eyes, the instant weakness in my knees and the compelling desire to lay down flat on my back and never get up again. Then again, I had never been much for smart ideas. I wasn't masochistic, exactly—it was just that I had lived with pain for so long that it was familiar, almost a comfort zone. If I wasn't hurting than I didn't know _what _to feel. At least this time it was just my head.

I picked my way carefully through the passed-out bodies like battlefield corpses, being very careful not to step on anyone. Stepping on people is generally considered rude, and plus, they were werewolves. Waking up a sleeping werewolf was an extremely dangerous proposition.

The bar was empty—no one sleeping on top of the stools, which was smart, they were precarious. Maybe they had coffee, hidden somewhere behind the bar. If they were smart they would have coffee. I made it to the bar, stumbled back behind it, and immediately tripped over Spencer Weston.

"Ow," he said sleepily, coming slowly, unwillingly awake. He was curled up here behind the bar with his knees pressed flat against the wall—didn't look very comfortable, but I guess he didn't have much of a choice with his left hand still hanging a foot and a half above the ground, cuffed and chained.

"Oh—jeez. Sorry," I said, trying to untangle my legs from his. "But you know, you are in the way."

"Oh, sorry." The sardonic voice was back in the absence of Ryan, and I wasn't sure I appreciated it. "I'm sorry that my sleeping in the two and a half feet of space behind the bar has inconvenienced you, really I am. I mean, I would move, but…"

"I appreciate the concern," I said, climbing back to my knees so I could search the back shelves for coffee. Coffee, coffee, coffee, anything resembling coffee, _something _to make my head feel a little less shattered. "Do you have coffee? Where do you keep your coffee?"

"I'm not really sure I'm supposed to be talking to you," he chose to decide right at this exact moment.

"Hey," I bossed him. "Do not pull that, you had _no _problem talking to me last night. Seriously, man—coffee. My head is on fire."

"I did warn you about the vodka," he said lightly. "Bad for you."

"Worst bartender _ever,_" I reiterated. "You're like an ice cream salesman telling warning kids about calories and cholesterol."

"Bartending was never really in my plans," he said briskly, a person breezing quickly past something that he didn't really want to talk about. "Coffee's on the third shelf, back corner."

"I thought it might not be." He might not want to talk about it, but I did, and so we were going to talk about it. I wasn't big on sensitivity. "The handcuff was a hint."

"Yeah," he said, looping the chain around his wrist so that it was short enough for him to prop his hand on a shelf. His voice was very matter-of-fact, calmer than I would have expected from a guy chained to a bar. The kind of tone that discouraged pity or curiosity, a this-is-just-the-way-things-are tone. "Usually they remember to unlock me, but hey—it was a party. Thanks for that, by the way."

"Oh, right, because it'," I said, venomously sarcastic. I did not like to blamed for things. I did enough bad things all on my own that I had _enough _consequences, thank you very much. No way I was taking responsibility for things I didn't do.

"No, you're just the reason I didn't get unchained," he said patiently, sardonically. "I explained this part already."

"I didn't _make _them stay here all night." I was trying to keep my voice out of that piercing harpy octave I was so good at—not that I didn't want to yell at him, because I did. I just didn't want to wake anybody up.

"Yes you did," he said logically. "You showed up and were pretty—thereby insuring that none of them could ever leave the room."

"What am I, a magnet?" I half-yelled, exasperated. My voice getting a little too loud.

"You really don't understand men, do you?" he asked, looking at me consideringly.

"I don't understand _you_!" I yelled.

He was on me in an instant, rolling almost on top of me with his hand clapping hard over my mouth. "Please," he said urgently. "Please don't yell. This is my only free time the entire day."

For the first time, he actually sounded like he cared about what he was talking about, and that made me pause long enough to stifle my instinct to kill him. I wasn't naturally homicidal, honestly I wasn't, but I also wasn't used to being—attacked, for lack of a better word. He couldn't really hurt me—he was obviously human, big green eyes and the copper scent of human blood—but he could surprise me and he could tick me off. I shoved him away, but not hard enough to break anything. Spencer Weston was a puzzle, and you don't solve puzzles by stomping on the pieces. "If this is what you call 'free time'," I said crossly, "I've got news for you."

"Oh, just come out and ask," he said, pulling the forgotten bag of coffee beans from my hands and standing stiffly, pushing through half-empty bottles to an old coffeemaker at the back.

"Ask what?" I said defensively.

"Come on."

"Come on _what_?"

"Fine," he said. "I'll help you out. Repeat after me: 'Spencer, why are you chained to the bar?'"

I ground the molars at the back of my mouth. I was very curious. But now _he'd _said it, _I _couldn't say it, right? I didn't like being told what to do—yes, even when I wanted to do those things in the first place. I was screwed up that way. "Spencer," I growled finally. "Why are you chained to the bar?"

"Oh, no reason," he shrugged, and turned back to making coffee.

I punched him.

My therapist says I express myself through violence because I'm uncomfortable with other expressions of emotion. He says that I feel helpless in my relationships and that violence is my way of asserting myself and attempting to control my surroundings.

Well, I guess I should call him my former therapist. He wasn't my therapist anymore after that day when I got mad and punched him.

Honestly, though, I didn't punch Spencer _hard. _I'm not stupid, I knew he was just screwing with me—I just punched him because I was annoyed. That's how I react to annoyance. In fact, that's how I react to everything. But seriously, I didn't expect him to suck in his breath sharply through his teeth and twisted his body sideways, pressing a hand to his side where I'd hit him.

"Oh my God—" I said, horrified. "Sorry, I—did I hit you that hard? I didn't mean to—"

"No, no, no," he said breathlessly. "It's fine, it wasn't you—just—broken rib. Sorry."

"Oh my God!" I said more loudly, actually putting a hand over my mouth, like I was some kind of pageant queen or something. I didn't usually feel bad about hurting people—but then again, most of the people I hung around weren't so breakable. "A broken _rib? _How is that _fine? _Who broke your rib?"

"Seriously, don't worry about it," he said, already straightening, pouring coffee beans out into the grinder. Typical guy—his face was still colorless with pain, but he wasn't going to admit he was hurt. _I can't believe I punched a guy with a broken rib. _"I was sort of asking for it."

Well, at least I could agree with that. "So, um," I said. "I don't suppose you want to tell me why you're chained to a bar, now? Anything to do with the broken rib?"

"In a round-about…Venn-diagram way," he said vaguely.

"I'm a details kind of girl," I said archly. "Spill."

"I'm a human, they're werewolves, I'm useful, they keep me," he said shortly, very very quickly. Then again, anything involving sleeping chained behind a bar was probably a sore subject. I could see the skin around his wrist bruised purple and green when the cuff moved.

Still not enough details for me. "Useful how?"

"Not useful enough to stay alive if he can't keep his mouth shut," Ryan's clipped voice sliced into our conversation, severing it neatly into halves. He was leaning over the bar with his shirt rolled up to his elbows, looking—slightly threatening. I'll admit, I hadn't thought he had it in him.

"Morning, Ryan," Spencer said lightly—the smart mouth taking a little longer to disappear, this time. "Coffee?"

"Two strikes, Weston." The accent sharpened his voice in a strange way— just that it was different than the voices I was used to. Classier, colder, more hostile. It was hard to get used to everyone around me sounding like this. "Do not. Talk to her."

Whoa. Controlling much? "Hey," I said. Just to be contrary. "I _like _talking to him."

"Talk to me instead," he smiled, converted suddenly back to charm, and oh he _was _charming. He was attractive and sweet and very disarming. I very much wanted to find something in him to hate. So far, he had a slight bit of bullying on his tab, but seriously. I needed a reason for being so sure I couldn't trust him.

I didn't have one. So I let him lead me away from the bar, slipping his arm through mine like some kind of—escort. Ryan Glass the Gentleman. I wished that he would stop being mean to Spencer. I wondered if there was a good reason why. That was the trouble with meeting a lot of new people all at the same time--you had to make a lot of snap decisions, a lot of demarcating, and you had to do it very fast with little or no perspective. These two people hated each other very much for what I had to assume was a good reason. One of them had to be right, and one of them had to be wrong. Dangerous part: figuring out which was which.

"So what are we talking about?" I said as we picked our way back across the room. Funny how war and parties both ended up looking the same at the end. Lots of bodies, lots of bodily fluids. Ick.

He turned to me and smiled brilliantly, all the crookedness in his smile obscured by sheer, bright-white wattage. "Oh, I don't know. I was thinking—marriage."

I stopped dead in the middle of the floor, my thoughts all bursting into exclamation marks. I had a sudden vivid memory of old cartoons where eyes popped straight out of heads, steam shot from ears. "I'm sorry, _what?_"

"Leah," he said, taking my hands in his. Suddenly perfectly serious—almost ridiculously so. The sountracked solemnity of a romance novel. "I think I've imprinted on you."


	5. Chapter 5

I am about as skeptical as it is possible to be for a person who is also a werewolf. Naturally, skepticism goes a little out the window when you start sprouting fur and claws, but I hang onto whatever bits of cynicism I can, and so there are a _lot _of things I don't believe in. I don't believe in unicorns. I don't believe in comeback tours or mermaids or elected officials, and I don't believe in vegetarianism. I also don't believe in love at first sight.

"I think I've imprinted on you," Ryan told me solemnly. And I didn't believe him.

Usually, when people say things that are unusually preposterous or strange, it takes me awhile to react. My brain has a fairly good filter for preposterousness, and it often tries to stop that kind of things on the way in—there's usually a few seconds between 'oh that's nice' and 'wait, _what_?'.

Then again, no one had ever said anything quite _this _preposterous to me—it burst straight through like a battering ram, no delay time whatsoever. "YOU THINK _WHAT?_" I screamed at Ryan, leaping away as if he'd stabbed me.

He was entirely unfazed—possibly unfazable. "I've imprinted on you," he repeated, walking back toward me with an expression like an indulgent lover. Like he meant to take me in his arms and tell me how cute and silly I was.

I was never silly, and I was certainly never cute. "YOU HAVE NOT!" I yelled. "YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS." The harpy voice was out now, no stopping it, and I could see people starting to stir from sleep as it pierced the air.

"I think I know what it means, Leah," Ryan said with a small halfsmile, taking hold of my arm. "Give me some credit."

"_I'LL _TELL YOU WHAT I'LL GIVE YOU," I yelled, and I punched him. This worked simultaneously better and worse than it had a moment ago—on the upside, I didn't cause any serious internal injuries, which I was unusually concerned with after the whole Spencer incident. On the downside—I missed. He ducked easily under my punch and caught my hand at the wrist, still with that infuriating expression as if we were lovers in some kind of affectionate spat.

"Leah," he said. "I'm not sure it's entirely fair for you to assume that your little family has cornered the market on undying love. From what I've heard about imprinting it feels exactly like this—like you're something very important that I've been missing. Like I'll die without you."

"You seem to be forgetting a very important element in all of this," I hissed, finally lowering my voice. Too late—the werewolves were stretching, standing—listening interestedly to our conversation. "_Imprinting _is a _two-way thing. _And I don't love you! I really don't!"

"Leah, you just need time—"

"It's not supposed to need time, Ryan, it's supposed to be instantaneous! And it's not! I don't love you! We're not even the same _species_!"

"Leah, darling—"

"Hey Ryan," Spencer said. "I think she wants you to leave her alone." Ryan turned and shot him a particularly nasty glare, and he shrugged. "Just a guess."

Ryan picked up the nearest empty glass and threw it at Spencer, hardly taking his eyes off me. That was the strange thing about the way Ryan treated Spencer—he was mean, but _casually _mean—the way people have always treated those that they don't think of as human, and the way they treat humans when they think they're something better.

A few of the hungover, zombie-walking werewolves were awake enough now to slouch around the bar in Spencer's direction, making sure he took the hint. Strangely enough, no one seemed terribly inclined to break up Ryan's romantic interlude. I mean, I'm not trying to be vain, but I could have sworn that last night I had a few dozen men willing to fight to the death over me if I had so much as batted my eyes. One of the fabulous perks of being a one-of-a-kind monster freak. Like when they found the first albino alligator in the swamps of Louisiana, remember that? Evvvvrybody wanted it.

But here they were, all stepping back—taking precautions to make sure we weren't bothered, even. My guess was that Ryan was their Alpha. No other way in the world that a man was going to back down from another man, especially not where women were involved. So they must have a good reason for doing it, no luck there. Still. There were a lot of men here—too many, in fact, weren't werewolves supposed to be almost extinct?—and surely, _surely _I could get one of them to break rank. Throw a little extra outlier into the situation.

All the werewolves looked very similar—in the way that my pack all looked similar, the way that vampires all looked similar, the difference in coloring and bone structure that means you are other than human. In the darkness and strobe last night, they had looked even _more _similar—just cutout black body shapes, basically—but I could recognize a few of them. The twins—David and Soren, I remembered, though I still couldn't tell them apart—and Chase, young enough to be my age and a little less lined than the rest of them, less sharp and toughened. Perfect.

I caught Chase's eye over Ryan's shoulder, doing my best approximation of a flirtatious look. "Hey! Chase, right?"

"Absolutely not," he said instantly—obviously I wasn't that subtle. How embarrassing. "I love you, Leah, you know I do, but—"

"You do not love her," Ryan said sharply, folding his arms around my shoulders from behind. "_I _love her. Only one person can love her, Chase, that's the way imprinting works."

"This is not an imprint!" I yelled, slapping his hands away. "_You _can't imprint! None of you have ever imprinted, it's just some bedtime story that you heard and you thought might be fun to try! Well, hey, guess what? You might as well go imprint on some _other _girl because I am _not _having you any freaky werewolf babies! Haven't you heard? I'm _sterile_!"

He didn't bat an eye. I wished he _would—_he stayed so constantly statuelike calm, sometimes I got the urge to just grab him and shake him. I would try to hit him, but we all knew how well _that _worked out. I was starting to really resent that crystalline prettiness of his, like the glassy surface of a lake, only the kind with _sharks _in it. Or the Loch Ness Monster. Whatever.

"Leah, Leah," he said. I also wished he would stop saying my name. First-name basis was for friends and colleagues and lovers, and he said it so _possessively. _I couldn't believe I had ever thought he was charming. His particular brand of charm probably worked best on girls prone to abusive relationships. "What makes you think that the rules of humans apply to you? What makes you think that your body still works the same way it used to? You aren't human anymore, Leah."

"What, are you suggesting that we try it out? I don't _think _so."

He stepped back in closer, arms going back around me like he couldn't keep them off me, what was his _problem? _He reminded me of lovey-dovey fiancés, in love with each other even in public and all starry-eyed, seeing nothing else, unable to stop touching each other—the way Sam and Emily had always been. Except even that was two-way! That was the way love worked, _two-way! _When it was only one-way it was called stalking!

"Oh, there's no rush." God, creepier and creepier! This guy had _fooled _me, hook line and sinker, hadn't he? It was just what I had said—people trusted pretty people. Yes, even me. "We've got time."

"Okay, that's it," I said, trying to push him away. He didn't budge. Which begged the suddenly urgent question—who was stronger, shape-shifters or real werewolves? Who was stronger, me or him? "I'm out of here."

He stepped away slightly, but not really enough to let me out. _Thanks, man. _"I don't want you to leave," he said, and it sounded like _I'm not going to let you leave. _This—could be a problem.

"_Ryan._" Spencer's voice broke into the moment—I had actually forgotten about him, despite the fact that he was right exactly behind me. "What, are you stupid? She doesn't want you! Leave her the hell alone!'

Either werewolves could communicate mind-to-mind, or Ryan's pack was just good at anticipating orders—every wolf who was awake moved toward Spencer at the same time, almost in unison. Synchronized threatening. Soren got there first, wrapping a hand around his throat and jaw and dragging him forward, far enough and fast enough that the chain pulled taut, bending his wrist back as it pulled full length.

"Wrist!" he said through his teeth, through Soren's grip on his neck, twisting his arm for more slack. "Wrist, wrist, wrist."

They didn't seem to care. Shocker. "Seriously, Weston," Ryan said. "Not a fast learner are you?" _I _cared—I wasn't a huge fan of bullying. Technically, I suppose I could be called a bully myself, what with all the bitching and harassing I did on a regular basis, but that wasn't the same. Hopefully. What I did was more—self-defense, and I didn't approve of picking on people who couldn't fight back. Besides, Spencer and I seemed to have a nice little circle of bully defense going here—I saved him, then he saved me, then I saved him, just passing the pack's attention back and forth between us like a game of hot potato. Keep 'em distracted long enough to do ourselves some good.

Of course, now it was my turn to save him again. "Would you _stop _that?" I yelled, shoving Ryan—harder this time, now that I knew what to expect, actually moving him away from me. "If you hurt him, I am leaving right now, I swear I will just—" My potential rant was interrupted by the sudden ring of my phone, lighting up through my pocket. I pulled it out and saw Sam's name written electronic black across the front, and the phone kept ringing. "Sorry," I said. "I have to take this."

"Hi," I said, turning away with the phone pressed to my ear. "Really not a good time."

"What? Why? You sound upset, what's going on?"

The familiar pulse of _he cares_. I swallowed past it, reminding myself that he didn't, he didn't care at all. He only cared about _Emily. _"Nothing, it's fine. I'm fine. What do you need?"

"I—just wanted to tell you that Jacob's flight will get in at about ten o'clock tomorrow—Leah, what's wrong? I can go too, I can take Emily and come if you need help—"

"No," I said sharply, reactionary. "Not Emily."

"Leah, something is wrong. You can tell me. I'm on my honeymoon but I'll leave, I'll explain to Emily—"

It must have been the pain again—the irrationality of being in pain, or something. There had to be a reason I said such _stupid _things to him constantly. "It's fine," I said this particular time. "If you _must _know, one of the werewolves over here imprinted on me. It's not a big deal. I—love him. It's fine. It worked out perfectly." I wasn't great at lying—it came out fragmented and too flip, but my brain was just telling me to say _something_ to this guy that I loved, make him jealous even though he could care _less _about who I was in love with. It was a pretty stupid thing to say—especially with Ryan standing right over my shoulder, lighting up like a Christmas tree at my words, looking so disgustingly happy. God, maybe he really _did _love me. Wonderful.

At least they were all paying attention to me now, and not to Spencer—I saw Soren let him go as he eavesdropped my half of the conversation, almost absentmindedly, as if he'd forgotten what he was doing. Good.

"Oh," Sam said after a moment. Surprised but not jealous. Of _course _not. Those kinds of tactics only worked on boys who weren't irrevocably, eternally in love with another woman. "That's—really great, Leah. I'm really happy for you."

I was feeling suddenly very irritable—yes, even more than normal. "Yeah, well, we're really happy. It's really great," I said crossly. "Maybe we'll invite you to the wedding, or something."

"Right," he said, a little confused at my hostility. As if I didn't have enough on him to justify hostility for the rest of his life. "Well—ten o'clock, okay? At Heathrow."

"Ten o'clock," I repeated, then slammed my phone shut. It didn't break, still holding up—I wanted to break it anyway, just out of spite. I wanted to break _something. _Possibly Sam's noise.

"So," Ryan said cheerfully. "I guess you're staying?"

"Yeah," I said reluctantly. That was the trouble with lies and consequences. All this over a boy who forgot about me unless I was directly in front of his face. At least maybe now, he wouldn't look at me with pity in his eyes, talk to me like I was subtitled Poor Leah. Poor Leah who I loved and abandoned. Poor Leah who is sad and bitter, and it's my fault. And it's my responsibility. For the first time in two years, he would get to think that I had moved on.

So what if that wasn't, technically, actually true. So what if I hadn't technically, actually imprinted on Ryan. There were what, fifty werewolves here? Maybe I'd imprint on someone else. It was pretty much now or never, I was never going to get a better chance than this. Maybe the rest of my pack could imprint on humans, but I'd always been a werewolf kind of girl. A Sam kind of girl. But if I imprinted, I would forget all that, all about him, and oh God did I want to forget.

So I turned to Ryan and tried to smile, tried to guess how many days I could stay here without going crazy or getting myself killed. Or killing someone. Maybe three days. Maybe one day.

"I'm staying," I said, "but get your hands off me."


	6. Chapter 6

AUTHOR'S NOTE: A million, million thank yous to my wonderful beta, slyprentice. We are now back on track.

--

When I was a kid, my favorite story was Rapunzel. Mostly I liked the part where she was a princess and had ridiculously long hair, but I can't say I objected to the bit where she was trapped up in a tower, either. It seemed glamorous and romantic, somehow, within the confines of the story—I mean, if she wasn't trapped up in a tower, how could she be rescued?

Of course, that was back before I considered being rescued a bad thing. I guess you could say I was a feminist now, in the most extreme and impossible sense of the word—some bizarre combination of werewolf and heartbroken adolescent that had never been _seen, _tearing through the world with my teeth. I had no interest in being shut up in a tower. I'd found my prince and he'd stomped on my heart—I was a little disillusioned with princes.

But here was Ryan putting his hands on me again, leading me away toward the back of the room with one hand on my hand and the other on the small of my back, _pushing _me. "There's a few rooms upstairs," he was telling me, brisk and complacent. "We can set you up temporarily in one during our engagement—your luggage is still in the car, right? David, could you—"

"Wait a second," I objected instantly, pulling away from him. Now that I was used to the resistance of Ryan's strength, I could do it easily—maybe I was stronger than him, I wasn't sure. Which species was stronger? I was tempted to challenge him to an arm-wrestling match. "You seem to have misunderstood me, sugar. When I said I was staying, I didn't mean I wanted to hang out in this club for the rest of my life, and I _definitely _didn't mean that I'm marrying you."

He took this with the confidence of a man who isn't often told no—probably thought I was playing hard to get. Ugh."Let me show you your room," he repeated calmly, as if to say _marriage will come later._

"I don't _think _so," I snapped. He kept moving _closer, _I swear he was going to smother me any second. Did he think that love meant _closeness_? Because if so then we were practicallymarried already. Was I really going to have to play house with him to make Sam jealous? I was starting to think it really might kill me. "One of my friends is flying in tonight, I need to go meet him. Which, yes, does involve leaving the club. So sorry."

The moment I mentioned leaving, everyone seemed to get very upset. A few of the werewolves even stepped forward, hands coming up and expressions getting very desperate very fast. "No!" Chase even said, stepping almost as close as Ryan. God! I was going to develop claustrophobia any minute now!

"What?" I was defensive—it was one of my natural reactions. Defensive, angry, paranoid—that was pretty much the run of my emotions these days. "I'm sorry, what, is London toxic? If I touch it I'll die? What?"

Ryan slid his arms possessively around my waist, and I sighed loudly—I was _tired _of pulling away from him, so I just let him do it. With any luck I would be out of here very soon, and besides—it was embarrassing to admit it, but it had been a long time since anyone's arms had been around me. If I didn't look at him I could pretend it was Sam. Was that wrong?

"Leah," he said disapprovingly—but with that same note of fear that had been in all of them, what was going on here? "It's almost sundown. You can't leave."

"What, is there a curfew?"

"Close," he said succinctly. "There are vampires."

"Oh," I blinked. I suppose I should have guessed that. England was such a completely different country, and I'd made the mistake of thinking it was a different world. "Vampires. Right. I remember them."

"They've been hanging around lately," Ryan explained. "They're pretty uncomfortable about the werewolf population getting so big. If you're outside when the sun goes down they will find you and kill you."

"Listen." His arms were getting a little too tight now—I moved my shoulders irritably inside his grip, signaling him not to get too comfortable. "I know you want to protect me, and that is either sweet or slightly creepy. Something you should know, though, especially if you want to _marry _me," the word left a bad taste in my mouth— reminded me of Emily in a white satin dress. "I can take care of myself."

"I think you may be underestimating the danger," Ryan said, all solicitous concern, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear, smoothing it down to my shoulders.

"I think you may be underestimating _me!_" I snapped, swatting him away, untangling myself from his grip—the hair thing was the last straw. "I have, actually, managed to keep myself alive for nineteen years. I think I can handle a few vampires. Besides, my friend is flying in. I have to meet him. This is not up for debate."

"Fine," Ryan said. Creepy stalker or not, he seemed to be much better at dealing with me than most people were. He never got upset, never let me provoke him—almost fatalistically calm. One of those people who knew that everything was gong to work out for him in the end, so why worry? "I'll come with you."

"_No!_" I yelled. "Maybe I was a little too subtle, Ryan—I need to go pick Jacob, but I also _really _need to get away from you. From all of you. I need a break."

My rudeness was a conscious choice—if I couldn't shock people, if I couldn't hurt them and make them back off, then how could I protect myself? And here was Ryan, _not reacting. _"Leah, I can't let you leave alone."

"You can't let me—" I gasped, trying to recover. "Okay, here's another idea, ready, how about this? _You can't stop me._"

"I'm sorry, Leah," he said firmly. "I can't let you leave." Shades of a father figure, which just pissed me off even more, because hey. My father was dead. And _nobody _else—nobody but Harry Clearwater—had ever been able to boss me around.

Funny thing about being a sex symbol—people didn't seem to take you seriously. Suddenly I understood what Britney Spears was always talking about. Unfortunately for Britney Spears, she wasn't a werewolf. She just had to smile and take it. _I, _on the other hand, could take matters into my own hand.

I was sick of arguing—obviously I wasn't going to get anywhere with Ryan the Controlling Patriarchal Stalker. So I turned around and grabbed him by the lapels of his tailored jacket and threw him into the alcohol shelves.

Bottles broke around him, shattering into jeweltone pieces that fell at his sides with their insides spilling out, glass and alcohol on the bar and floor. I had actually aimed a little to make sure I didn't hit Spencer—I'd accidentally injured him once already today—but he ducked anyway, covering his head with his arms like a bomb threat victim. Stop drop and roll. Guy was almost as paranoid as I was, for what I had to assume was a very good reason. Probably not everybody was so careful about where they threw things.

Ryan put up absolutely no resistance to my throw—maybe it was a chivalry thing, you never knew with Ryan, but I had probably just gotten the drop on him. And here was the problem with the kind of totalitarian leadership that werewolves were into—nobody else reacted either. They were all watching Ryan fly through the air and slam into the wall, waiting for his orders even though he wasn't quite in the position to be giving them. But they weren't stupid, and this wasn't going to last forever—I turned around and walked quickly toward the door.

"I'll be home late, honey," I yelled over my shoulder. "Don't wait up."

I waited for someone to stop me, but no one did.

--

Here was something I hadn't expected: I really liked London. I mean _really. _

Some people fall in love with places. Some people don't. Some people never have a sense of place, and for some people it's never important. Other people—they step foot in California or New York City and the sun or the sky or the noise—it just hits them. I've heard people gush about cities and states like they were lovers, places they find and never leave. I've always been one of the indifferent kinds—I was born in La Push and that's where I stayed, never really gave it much thought.

But oh my God, _London. _Things were sharper here, more in focus, preppy, urban, smart, clean. _Sharp. _The people were perfect against the backdrop of the cleanlined cut stone buildings—they were a thousand different colors and perfect, wearing scarves and heels, wearing skin like dark cooking chocolate. It smelled like thunderstorms and cut grass. I was having trouble paying attention to where I was walking—my eyes were always on the buildings, on the shopfront windows and people, not on my feet.

To be honest, I wasn't really exactly sure where I was going—where I was in London and where Heathrow was in comparison. It didn't matter—I had six hours to find it, I could afford to wander. I'd just barely discovered the underground, and it was _lovely. _Who would ever want to use a car or plane if you could have _this_—metal veins through the city, taking you anywhere you wanted and fast enough that you could see the world move.

It was just so _industrial_—nothing in Forks had been industrial. Cement tunnel walls with cutout ceiling windows, close clammy air and the bleedoff music from a dozen iPod headphones. I could see how it could be called ugly, claustrophobic, unpleasant, but again—I liked it. It felt like London; it felt sensible and clean-cut. I felt like it had good intentions.

Of course, I still didn't know how to use it. Basically my game plan at the moment was to hop on whatever train was in front of me and take it for however long I felt like, and figure out how to get to Heathrow by process of elimination. For now, it was nice just to be able to stretch my arms without hitting Ryan in the face. Maybe I had commitment issues. I had _something _issues, that was for sure.

I checked my phone as I boarded my latest underground car, in case Sam had called—I saw one missed call, and the number was my mother's. I shut the phone again. I loved my mother, but I didn't want to talk to her right now. She thought I was crazy for coming here, and until I could make myself disagree, I didn't want to hear her logic. She tended to make sense. Nothing from Sam, but hey. Story of my life.

A man sat down next to me, which was weird—the car was still half-empty, it was a violation of the human Buffer Zone rule. Still, I barely noticed him until he said, "Wow, small world."

I glanced sharply over and found myself looking at that familiar sharp jawline and eyes bright green like peppers, hot bright green. A bracelet-ring of bruising circling his left wrist. "_Spencer?"_


	7. Chapter 7

"Spencer?"

"_Leah._" He didn't say it like Ryan did—he said my name like it was an inside joke, an ironic sweet reference to something I should remember. "Imagine seeing you here. What a crazy random happenstance."

"What—what the--?" I was trying to string words together like a normal person, trying to regain my mastery of the English language with admittedly limited success. I didn't do well with surprise. "What—did you escape? I mean, why—?"

"Hmm, I wish," he mused. "No, it's more of…let's see, how to explain? Ever see that movie _My Bodyguard? _I'm Adam Baldwin, and you're Matt Dillon."

"I'm Matt Dillon?"

"Okay, so it's not a perfect metaphor," he said, "but I thought the title would be a giveaway."

His humor was strange—very dry, dead dry and dead black, and occasionally it threw me. Sometimes it was hard to know what was meant to be funny. "If that was true, then you would be trying to tell me that you're my bodyguard," I argued, "which can't possibly be true." No, I wasn't one of those snobby elitist types who thought humans were bugs under my feet, but still. Facts were facts.

He arched his eyebrows at me, half-challenging. "What, you think I can't do it?"

"I think you can't do it."

"You're wrong."

"Listen, Spencer, I respect you as a person and all," I said condescendingly. Yikes, I'd better watch out or I would be one of those humans-are-bugs-under-my-feet types after all. "But you can't protect me. You can't do anything." Whoops. A little harsh. Then again, if the shoe fits…

"Why do you think the werewolves keep me around, Leah?"

Excellent question. "I don't know, why _do _they keep you around?"

"Never mind," he said, shutting back down—I could see him shuttering up his eyes, one of the most effective emotional blockouts I'd ever seen. I guess he had had practice, but still—I'd never thought anyone could be colder than me. I was a little jealous. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Don't want to _talk _about it? You're the one who brought it up!"

"I shouldn't have. It was a pride thing. You were challenging my masculinity." And there it was again—was he kidding? Probably, and if so how much? Should I smile? Was it okay to laugh?

I went another direction entirely. "Well, then why don't you run away now?" I asked logically. "Could just be me, but I doubt that bodyguarding me is what you want to be doing right now."

"Oh, I don't mind." This time I _knew _he wasn't kidding, which was a first. Just from the way he was looking at me—his eyes were _very _green, it wasn't really…fair. Like when someone shines a flashlight straight in your eyes. "Beats bartending, anyway. And I can't run, Ryan will just find me. It's happened before. Don't you have that whole freak super-senses thing, too?"

"Yes," I said crossly, slightly offended. Sometimes I used the words myself, in my mind or my conversation, things like "weird" or "freak" or "unnatural". I used them myself to try to take the sting out of when they were used by others, because "freak" as a word I hated to hear. Because I was. A freak, a sport, a one-of-a-kind. An albino alligator. "Thanks a lot."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to make you mad," he said, seeming a little puzzled as to why, exactly, I was mad. "It's just that you're—different."

"Yes. I am. We're different species," I said shortly.

"It's a _compliment, _Leah, don't be silly," he said, exasperated. "I hate these werewolves. You're different than them, which means I like you."

"You _like _me?" How silly. I felt a little fluttery, almost touched. _Nobody _liked me. It was very unusual. So of course my reaction was hostility. "No you don't. Why would you like me?"

"Because you're strong and smart and capable," he said simply, like a person answering a science question. All business. "Because everyone can tell you're hurt but you don't let it stop you. Because sometimes I look at you and—hmm." I saw the shutters going shut again. Slam. A person who's suddenly realized he's said too much. "Never mind."

I felt my breath catching over and over, like a car that wouldn't start, like I was having a heart attack right there on the B car of the London underground. It was just—stunning. I was stunned. Not the kind of stunned when you're surprised but the kind where someone has hit you over the head with something heavy. "Oh," I said finally. "Okay."

He wasn't looking at me anymore—had already moved on, and taken those eyes away from me, thank God. "You asked," he said. "So—Heathrow?"

What was he doing? Was he _flirting _with me? Surely not. I could never tell if he was kidding, he could be kidding now. He had better be kidding. Romantically, I was not much but a time bomb. Horror movie murder victim number eight, chest slashed to ribbons. I did the duck-and-cover thing, I couldn't meet flirting head on. "No, Jacob doesn't get in till ten."

"So," he switched instantly, easily. "Coffee?"

--

Twilight was cutting the city out in sharp lines and shadows, making London into sketched black silhouettes—shading further and further for every inch the sun went down. It looked dramatic, fantastic, I couldn't keep my eyes off it. I hoped Spencer didn't mind—that I was looking straight past him out the window over his shoulder, that I liked the city better than him. I didn't really want to look at him anyway, because he was looking back at me, and that made me jittery. Most people didn't look me in the eyes, not for the last few years, but I guess he didn't know better.

I sneaked a glance at him, and sure enough, he was looking at me, gaze-piercing me with those damn green eyes. I did the junior-high thing and looked away quickly again, trying to pretend I hadn't been looking at all. Which was a little difficult since I was sitting straight across from him, sucking up the foam dregs of my cappuccino and feeling his eyes on my mouth and cheekbones and hair.

As I said, it had been awhile since anyone had liked me. It had been awhile since I'd, for example, had someone to have coffee with. Things that casual and friendly had not existed for me in La Push. I didn't know how to handle him. If it had been up to me, even something as simple as getting coffee would have crashed and burned. He was easy to talk to, though, the kind of guy who starts conversations and then takes them places, asking me about opinions and favorites and world politics. He didn't treat me like a stupid girl and he didn't treat me like a bitch. I just couldn't figure out what he _was _treating me like.

He finished his own coffee and slid his watch face-front on his wrist—right wrist, of course, the left was a little jacked up at the moment. "Seven thirty," he informed me. "We've still got a few hours—should we take this date somewhere else?"

I had a lot of hot-button words, words that surprised me and upset me and made me house-on-fire furious—and all for very good reasons, I might add. "Love" was one of them—also "boyfriend", "girlfriend", and "marriage". Oh yeah: and "date". He managed to drop the word at exactly the wrong time, exactly as I was sucking the last bit of cappuccino up the straw.

I choked. I mean seriously choked, the kind of choking that makes milk shoot out of your nose in the lunch room, the kind of choking where you think you're going to die. I started coughing and then stopped, gasping up at Spencer as suggesting he might give me some _help _here, thank you very much.

"Keep coughing," he instructed briskly, getting up out of his chair and moving around to me—pulling my shoulders back so that I was sitting up straight, tipping my head back. "Hey, Leah—_cough_, okay? It's just liquid, it won't kill you. Coughing will clear your airway."

I usually wasn't one for following directions, but choking to death on a cup of coffee was not what I wanted to go on my gravestone. I coughed. It _hurt, _but he was right—it cleared out quickly, the coughs less violent every time. His hands pulled away from me and he disappeared, apparently leaving me to die.

"This is _not_—" I growled at him with what was left of my voice, as he showed up again with another styrofoam cup in his hand, "a _date._"

"Listen," he said, sliding back into the booth, sliding the cup across the table to me. "I have not had a lot of real social interaction for the last few years. I'm going to call it what I want, and you can't stop me. So there."

"Oh, I would not bet on that," I snapped hoarsely.

"You sound terrible," he informed me. "Drink the water. It'll soothe the strained tissue in your throat."

I drank the water he'd brought me, and of course, he was right. I didn't want to _trust _him or anything, but he did seem to be right a lot of the time. "Strained tissue," I repeated dubiously. "How exactly do you know all this, Spencer?"

"Med school," he said shortly.

"Med school? Really?"

"Yeah."

"Is there a…story here?" I liked to know stuff. Not my fault. Even pre-Sam I had been a little nosy, and since then it had become more of a meanspirited prying. I just—liked to know stuff, and usually people didn't tell me anymore unless I beat it out of them with a crowbar.

"Yes. A secret story," he told me firmly. Looks like I was going to need that crowbar. "I'm not sure what you would call my current employment, but I think I'm overqualified."

"Well, what happened?" I pried shamelessly. "How'd you end up with Cujo and the hyenas, here?"

"Look, Leah," he said, in that fragile tone that people get when they're talk over a sensitive subject. Like a person tiptoeing across thin ice. "You've been around these guys long enough to know that when they want something, they take it. Even if it's in Med School."

"But why would they want _you?_" I asked, frustrated. "What's so great about _you?_ No offense," I added belatedly.

"Yeah, no problem," he said wryly. "So let's get out of here, huh? We could go see Buckingham Palace. Do you want to see Buckingham Palace?"

"No, I want to hear about _you,_" I said crossly.

"How about Stonehenge? We could probably make it to Stonehenge."

"I don't _want _to go to Stonehenge, I want you to answer my questions!"

"Wait, how about the London Eye? You _have _to see the Eye, Leah, it's the biggest Ferris wheel in the world."

"I do not want to—" Wait. That actually sounded kind of fun. "Biggest—Ferris wheel?"

"Biggest Ferris wheel," he repeated solemnly. "In the world."

It _was _getting dark outside—the buildings were barely visible now outside the window, just darker shadows cut with boxes of window-light. As much as I disliked Ryan and sort of wanted to punch him in the eye, I couldn't help remembering what he'd said about nighttime in London. The um…vampires, and stuff.

But hey. I was Leah Clearwater. I was famous. And I could take care of myself.

Right?

Oh well, screw it. I wanted to see the Ferris wheel.

"All right," I said, standing in a quick, decisive way that left no question that I was about to make a rash decision. So what else was new. "Let's do it."


	8. Chapter 8

It did look sort of like an eye.

I mean, not _really. _Not in a creepy Lord of the Rings way or anything, but there was a definite ocular quality to it—the ring of it with its thousand lights. The spokes pointing inward like a metal iris. I saw it from ten miles away, and when we stood at the base of it I couldn't see the top.

"Wow," I said, staring at it with my head tipped so far back that my ponytail fell straight down my spine. "_That's _a Ferris wheel."

"Four hundred and forty-three feet tall," Spencer said, looking up at it with his hands shoved in his pockets.

I shot him a sideways look. "Did they teach you that in med school?"

He didn't rise to the bait. It wasn't very good bait, though, so I didn't blame him. This was how I worked—I bothered people. I just needled and needled away at them until they finally snapped. I harassed. I harried.

"No," he said, pulling a glossy folded paper out of his pocket and tapping me on the forehead with it. "Brochure."

"Ah. Of course."

"It says here that it's not, actually, the tallest Ferris wheel in the world," he read in that wry, flat tone he had. I tried to imagine him as a lawyer or a flight attendant, but I'd still never heard anyone make boring sound so very amusing. "It's the third tallest. There's one in Singapore and one in China that are taller."

"You mean there are people out there having a Ferris wheel competition?" I asked. "Actively one-upping each other in Ferris wheel height? That is so unbelievably sad."

When you're standing in front of the world's third-largest Ferris wheel, you look at the third-largest Ferris wheel. It's just natural instinct, right? Well, he wasn't. He was looking at _me_—and not just looking, _staring _at me, with the expression of an art critic eyeing a new work, the kind with just lines and blocks of color. As if I were a puzzle he was trying to figure out. "Why do you do that?" he said.

"Do what?" I spiked up instantly, like a pufferfish under threat. "What the hell do you mean?"

"_That,_" he said. "The—hostility thing."

"Oh, I am _always _provoked," I said acidly.

"Hey, I'm not throwing stones," he said, hands coming up. "I agree, it's a good way to handle a situation. I just want to know why. People like you and me—we aren't just born like this. We get like this because things have happened to us. I just wondered what it was that happened to you."

My life was chock-full of double standards—not that all of them had been created by me, but there it was. I liked to know things about people, but I did not like people to know things about me. I had walls around me ten feet high, the kind you could only get past by gate or grappling hook—and I definitely wasn't opening the gate. "You can't just _ask _people things like that," I said crossly, instantly and extremely touchy, stalking away toward the ticket hall. What, did he want me to tell him about Sam? Did he want that whole soap opera? That wasn't a story I was really crazy about telling. "What's wrong with you?"

"You know what's wrong with me," he said, following two steps behind me. "Or at least part of it. I'm just trying to understand you, that's what friends do."

"Oh, is that what we are?" I turned on him mid-stride, nearly colliding with him. "Friends?"

"Probably not," he said honestly. "But we're something, and we're not something less."

"I don't understand you," I said, and I was doing it on purpose. If he was flirting again, then I didn't want to know it. "But here's the deal, Spencer. I'll tell you about why I'm mean when you tell me what you're doing here. Why the werewolves want you." Maybe. Who knew, if he was that honest with me, I _might _actually tell him. I liked honesty.

"Right," he said sardonically. "I'll definitely think about that. So! Let's buy your ticket, huh?"

He was running counters again, and I was about to nail him on it, but then something else caught my attention. A sudden sharp chemical burn turning my head, riveting the scent in my senses because this was not a scent I was built to ignore. "Wait." I pressed my hand flat on his shoulder, pushing him around so that he was between me and the Eye, so that I was between him and everything else. He was still human and I was meant to protect him, that was my job. "Do you—wait. Hmm. No, never mind."

If there was one smell in the world that I could recognize, it was vampire. For a werewolf, the scent of a vampire is like drinking drain-cleaner—like when you get soda up your nose, only imagine the same thing happening with _drain-cleaner. _It is not fun. So if there had really been a vampire around, I would have known, wouldn't have been able to _think _about anything else. I didn't smell anything.

"What?" Spencer had that same paranoid tension running through his body, I could feel him coiling under my palm. His eyes were darting past me, trying to see what had made me twitch. "What is it?"

"Nothing," I said brusquely, moving slightly away from him but still keeping him behind me. Who was bodyguarding now? "It's nothing. Sorry, what were you saying about _my _ticket?"

"Your ticket," he agreed, holding open the door to the ticket hall. "I'm not coming."

"Um. Why?"

"Kind of afraid of heights," he told me.

"Oh, suck it up," I retorted, pulling him inside. "You're in a giant glass box. It's not like you're going to lean too far and fall out."

"Maybe I wasn't clear," he said disapprovingly. "I am _really _afraid of heights. Really really."

"Spencer, I am not going on this thing by myself!" I told him, exasperated. "You are coming with me!"

"I am not coming with you."

"You're coming with me!"

"I'm not."

He wasn't. I ended up standing in that glass box without him, watching as he got slowly smaller on the ground under me. There were about eight of us inside in the Ferris wheel fishbowl, and none of them was him—it was a little hard for me to understand why this made my uneasy. I could still see him pretty well twenty feet from the ground, thanks to the freak werewolf senses, hair and skin just starting to blend into the dark. Hands in his pockets, staring up at me as I rose up into the sky.

There weren't any stars. London was still bright enough to blank them out, bleach them with the faux-star reflections of the building lights and cars. That was okay. Stars weren't a necessity. But I wondered if I would be able to see them when I got to the top.

It was nothing like my past experience with Ferris wheels—no rusted wires, no seats that rock when you lean forward too far, no kids in above you throwing up their cotton candy. Just the fishbowls, the big elliptical glass capsules that took you gently, serenely, to the top of the city so that you could stare down at it like a god. The people who constructed it probably imagined it as the ultimate escape, an aloof and out-of-this-world experience. But they had not counted on me. I was not out of the world. The world was right in here with me, I could hear it, I could see it and smell it better than humans even with glass and metal in between. Fifty feet into the air, my nose and throat started burning again.

Very, very bad. It was that familiar bright chemical burn, hitting me so suddenly and so hard that I nearly shifted right there, in a glass box with eight people, fifty feet over London. Oh, there was no doubt, it was definitely vampires.

My first thought was, _I really need to learn to trust my instincts. _Again, this one probably wasn't my fault, as everyone I knew had spent the last two years telling me I was wrong. But more and more, I was starting to think that maybe I was right. At least sometimes, and when it was instinctual—almost always.

My second thought was, _Spencer. _

I took two quick steps forward to the glass, practically pressing my nose up against it, trying to find Spencer again on the ground. I saw him almost instantly, smaller now but still recognizable, thank God my vision was so good because I found him very quickly. Not looking up at me anymore, turned around with his arms spread out to either side of him, like a hawk mantling. Facing a loose half-circle of figures, the ones I was smelling and sensing from here. Vampires.

And here I was, fifty feet in the air.

I wondered if this thing had an emergency brake.


	9. Chapter 9

Being a Werewolf: A Pro and Con List, by Leah Clearwater.

Pro: Running fast. Heightened senses. Speedy commutes. Job satisfaction. The ability to hit people who you are mad at and have it actually work.  
Con: Imprinting. Looming sense of duty. Knowing that your friend is on the ground fifty feet below you and being able to see and smell every detail of the danger and yet not being able to do anything about it. Because werewolves can't fly. It was a problem.

See, _that _would be cool—wolves with wings. _That _might be something worth being. In the meantime, though, I was going to have to work with what I had. And I was not much of a sit-around-and-watch kind of girl.

"Excuse me," I said, dropping to the floor where the hatch was, the one that had opened down to let us in. "How does this open?" I hadn't been paying attention. Mistake number two.

I hadn't said anything to any of the other passengers so far, and I'm not sure this was the best first impression to make. They all instantly adopted that she's-crazy look, the edgy, unsure look that said I'd just taken them out of their comfort zone. "You don't," one man said, quick to disapprove—as if I was a sort of a curious child who needed a kind reprimand. "It doesn't open. We're—midair."

"I know _that, _I'm not _stupid,_" I informed him. "It's just that I need to get out anyway."

"Dear," said one worried, tweedy woman, stepping forward to guide me away from my obviously crazy idea. "Why don't you come away from that?"

"Nope," I said, pushing her carefully away. You couldn't hit middle-aged women wearing tweed, even if they _did _annoy you. "No thanks. Busy." There didn't seem to be a handle or mechanism on the inside, which was probably smart. Kept people like me from opening the pod in the middle of the ride.

The passengers dealing-with-a-crazy-stranger mousiness was disappearing very quickly, replaced by the more pressing instinct to not die. They all moved forward with the decisiveness of a forming mob, the first man taking hold of my arm. "Miss, you need to come away from the door. We can't let you—"

"I do _not _have time for this," I snapped, shoving him away considerably less gently. _He _wasn't wearing any tweed, and plus I didn't like him. "Spencer could be dead any second now, okay? I need to go."

"Dead?" A thin woman said faintly, turning the pale pink color of her dress and pressing a hand to her heart.

"Yes," I snapped, "_dead. _Noun, meaning deceased, no longer living, deprived of life. Which would _suck. _So I'm _in a hurry._"

Stage number three: panic. "Kevin," the pale pink woman said, tugging at the sleeve of the man next to her. "Kevin, _do _something. _Kevin_!" Behind her, a teenage girl starting dialing on her cell phone. Probably 911.

Didn't matter—I was out of here anyway. Obviously this door wasn't opening on it's own, but I had no problem persuading it. "You might want to stand back," I told them. "We're pretty high up, there's probably going to be some wind."

"Wind? What?" someone said shrilly.

"Yeah," I said, taking a step back, eyeing the target. "Seriously. You might want to move." And I stepped quickly back in and slammed my foot into the door.

Again, the pods had obviously not been made with werewolf containment in mind. The doors were sturdy but they had nothing on me—the middle crushed in, almost footprinting where I kicked it, and popped open.

I was right, there was wind—I felt it the instant the door broke, sweeping up against the glass like a vacuum, making the passengers scream and press back and cling to each other. "Hold on!" I yelled at them. Hmm, endangering eight humans for the life of one. I'm not sure the Council would approve. "I'll shut the door when I get out, okay, just hang on for a minute!"

I stared down at the white wires and bars, taking a few seconds to convince myself that I really did want to do this. It really only took a few seconds—_I _wasn't afraid of heights. Honestly, I wasn't afraid of much. To have fear, first you had to care about something.

As I climbed carefully out onto the scaffolding, I saw that there were parachutes strapped to the bottom of the pod. Yeah, right. _That _wasn't happening. Better option: the ladder leading from the base of the pod, all the way down the spoke to the middle. Ladders were better than parachutes. I could do ladders.

I swung myself out onto the first rung and began climbing down quickly, step over step—speed was a little bit of an issue here, and even if I fell from fifty feet I wasn't likely to get killed. Probably. The passengers in my pod disagreed—they were yelling frantically at me from the capsule, careful not to get too close to the edge. Other people were definitely noticing, too—the other pods that I passed had people yelling at me from behind the glass, waving their arms, and I could hear the crackle of speakers blaring up from the ground.

"Get back in the pod!" the guy behind the speaker yelled, sounding terrified and furious. "Ma'am, climb back up the ladder! Get _back _in the pod!"

"No!" I yelled at him, just out of principle. No way he could hear me. But seriously, I wasn't going back _now, _I was almost halfway down the ladder. The wind was slicing past me, cut into pieces by the wires and supports, blowing my ponytail into my face, but I had a good grip. If yelling wasn't going to get me down, then the wind wasn't going to, either.

I found the last rung and hopped off it, landing on the platform with a metallic clunk. There was a door for an elevator, but screw that, not enough time for an elevator, Spencer could be _dead _already. Besides, if I got in an elevator, it could be locked or something—I saw the security workers yelling at me from their booth as I ran past on the staircase, trying to get out quickly enough to catch me. _Not a chance, guys. _I couldn't run as fast as I could with four legs, but I could sure as hell outrun them.

"Spencer!" I yelled as I got to the bottom of the stairs, looking around for him, or any significant blood-splatters. "Spen_cer_!" Eyes out for any blood, any violence, any vampires holding his throat to their mouths. I ran straight past him the first time, leaning casually back against the wall, arms folded, head down and looking _very _surprised to have me coming at him like a bat out of hell. I did a double take and looked back, and yep, that was him. Absolutely not dead. "_Spencer!_" I all but collapsed onto him, throwing my arms around his neck—not so much a hug as a grab, wrapping myself around him for protection.

"Whoa!" he said as I drove him back into the wall. "Hi! The, um…the ride isn't over, Leah."

"You're not dead!" Okay, statement of the obvious, but it was a big deal.

"No, I'm—not." He sounded genuinely puzzled, which didn't make any sense. Where were the vampires? Was I going crazy? It wouldn't exactly be a surprise, but I had thought it would feel different. "Why would I be dead?"

"_Spencer,_" I said disapprovingly, as if he were a person I suspected of fibbing. "The _vampires._"

"Oh, them." He looked honestly surprised again, as if he'd really actually forgotten. Unbelievable. I'd looked down from the Eye not five minutes ago and could have _sworn_ they were ready to tear him apart. I mean, what else did vampires do? "No, they didn't kill me."

My exasperation was at such red-zone high levels that it blocked my throat for a minute, making it an effort just to say, "_Why _didn't they kill you?"

"I'm not trying to duck your question, or anything," he said. Yeah _right. _"But I think we'd better get out of here."

I turned where he was looking and saw security guards swarming towards us, livid en masse, yelling into their walkie-talkies. Jeez, all I'd done was make their job more exciting. Nobody got _hurt. _They should have been _thanking _me, what, did they just want to sit around in a booth all day?

But they obviously weren't, so he was right—this was our cue to leave. I was _not _letting him get away with this, though, not again. I turned and grabbed his shoulders and glared at him, saying "Okay, fine. We can get out of here. But when we stop running, you are going to _tell me who you are, _do you understand? You are going to explain all of this."

"Leah, I don't think you—"

"No, I'm not asking anymore," I interrupted. "This is not a request. You are going to tell me."

He sighed and turned away, but I couldn't tell whether it was an accepting sigh or simply frustration. "Come on," he said, "let's go."

I shrugged—didn't matter what _he _thought, I wasn't taking no for an answer. So I grabbed his hand and we ran out into the streets of London, weaving through parked cars and pools of lamppost light, leaving the guards and the Eye behind us.


	10. Chapter 10

"Did I ever tell you how pretty you are?"

"Yes, Spencer. Twice in the last five minutes," I said patiently. Normally I would be more annoyed, but he could tell me I was pretty all he wanted, I really wasn't going to object. Just not at the expense of other things. "Stop trying to distract me."

"What, you think I'm not serious?" He took two quick steps ahead and opened the airport door for me, the glass reflecting fluorescent light into our eyes. "You're very pretty, Leah. Do people not tell you that?"

"Ryan does," I dodged. No, people didn't tell me I was pretty. With the exception of the last few days, nobody had told me I was pretty except Sam. Two years ago.

"Well," he said glibly, "_hate _him, but can't exactly blame him."

"_I _can_, _and what's this sudden obsession with the way I look?"

"Well, if that was all there was to you, I might not care," he explained. "I still can't believe you climbed down from that Ferris wheel, Leah."

"Might I remind you that I thought your life was in jeopardy? You might be more grateful."

"Sweet of you," he said wryly. "Doesn't make you less crazy."

"Thanks for _reminding _me, though." I grabbed his a handful of his sweater and dragged him sideways, pushing him into a phonebooth and then sliding myself in after him. It was a tight fit—I could feel the buttons of his jeans cutting into my stomach, and my arm was trapped under the phone. But when I shut the door behind us, there were two good things—almost total silence, and nowhere he could run. "Right," I said firmly, trying to ignore his face three inches away from mine. "Spill."

We were shoved together so hard I could barely breathe, but he barely seemed to notice. All the flirtation had gone out of his face—his expression shuttering again, closing slowly shut. The look of someone under siege; and I knew that what I was doing was mean, was contradictory and selfish. I was prying up pieces of him so I could look underneath, and it was horrible. But I lived in a world that made it necessary to know things, that demanded that I know everything or the one thing I didn't know would kill me. I might feel bad about it but I wasn't going to stop. Even feeling bad was unfamiliar to me, and no. It wasn't going to stop me. "Spencer," I said sharply. "You can't just make things happen in my life and not tell me why."

"Fine." He had gone suddenly very cold. His shoulders pulling back from me, his eyes dropping, hurt and disconnect. "Fine. You want to know? I'll tell you."

"Why don't you do that," I said, but my voice came out too small. I hoped he didn't notice. I depended on being larger than life at all times. I had to push things through on force, and at the moment I had no force in me. I couldn't find it.

"Some people have talents," he explained slowly. "Some people can throw a football. Some people know what colors go with what. It's something like that for me."

"What?" I asked, nonplussed. "You can throw a football?"

"No," he said. "I can repel vampires."

I blinked. I closed my eyes. My hand was going numb against the phone, all the blood cut off. "You can—"

"Repel vampires," he repeated firmly, as if determined to get through this with a straight face.

Well, that explained a lot. It was also completely crazy. "Spencer, that's weird," I told him.

"I know that," he snapped, breaking his iciness to pieces. "You don't think I know? I would be a _doctor _right now, Leah. I would have _graduated _last year."

It was weird but I wasn't sure I could make myself disbelieve him. It had a precedent—strange human talents that popped up every once in awhile, usually only manifesting strong enough to notice if they were turned into vampires. But it had happened. "Like how?" I demanded. "Like bug spray? Like a taser?"

"I don't know—both," he shook his head. "Neither. I don't know. Ask a vampire."

"So why was this a big secret?" I asked, eyes slitted. "You couldn't tell me this because—"

"One, because it makes me a freak," he said. "Because it's hard to explain, because it's abnormal—"

"What, you didn't think I'd understand abnormal?"

"_Two,_" he continued sharply. "Two. Because when people find out what I can do, all they can think about is how they want to use me."

"Oh," I said.

"What kind of life is it that I have?" he said acidly. "What kind of stupid life is this? I'm a _security system _for monsters who would sooner bite off my head than look at me, I'm a _mosquito candle. _I do _nothing _all day but stare at the ceiling in a locked room, and I do nothing all night but serve tequila to drunk werewolves while they throw shot glasses at my head and kill people right in front of me and try to decide whether they want to kill me too. And every time I get within yelling distance of a vampire, all they can talk about is how _they _want me, how _useful _I would be, what they could _do _if they got their hands on me. I," he said, biting each word off, "am just a _thing_."

He made me feel sympathetic, protective, angry, it was strange and I didn't like it. I couldn't figure him out. His face was too close to mine. "Why don't you do something about it?" I asked. Absolutely determined not to pity him, I knew what that felt like.

"Because I'm human," he said bluntly. "And in this world, that means I'm third class. I am absolutely ineffective. What do you mean, _do _something about it? I could get myself turned into a werewolf, but then I'd _be _a werewolf. I could get myself turned into a vampire but then I'd be a vampire. Do you have a solution for me, Leah? Because that would be just fantastic."

"Have you tried…" I searched. He was making me feel this way—like I _wanted _to solve his problems. Possibly because they were so big and so very, very impossible. "Have you tried _not _repelling vampires?"

"Yeah, last time I did that they broke my arm," he said flatly. "Any other ideas?"

"No, I mean, can't you just—"

"Do you—not believe me, Leah?" he said, tipping his head to the side, his eyes suddenly green on fire. I hated to look at them.

"No, no," I said hurriedly. "It's not that, it's just—"

"Do you think I _want _to be here? Do you think this is what I want to be doing?"

"Spencer!" He was snowballing, avalanching into something like hysteria. I doubt that he talked about this very often, and I almost regretted asking. The skin was stretched tight across his jaw, crunched in at his eyes—he looked like he was in pain. "I didn't mean that! Would you please listen to me?"

"Look, Leah," he said tiredly, dropping his head onto his chest—getting closer still, I wished he would stop doing that. Memo to self: phonebooth, bad idea. He smelled like mint and leather. I pressed back as far as I could, the phone digging into my shoulderblades, and tried not to look him in the eyes. "Do you believe me, or not?

I was having trouble remembering the question. Stupid hormones! I wasn't in high school anymore but I was still a teenager, and wow. That mouth. Those cheekbones. They were hard to ignore when they were three inches away from me. It had been years since a boy had even _touched _me, and sometimes I forgot what that would mean. Stupid, _stupid _hormones!

"Spencer," I said. I was making it up as I went. Anything to get out of this phonebooth. "I do believe you. Really."

"Well, there's one way for me to prove it," he said in a sudden strange voice.

There was an abrupt, polite rapping on the door of the phonebooth, like a person in line who was impatient for us to finish. Only it wasn't a person in line.

"Oh, look," I said faintly. "Vampires."


	11. Chapter 11

"Oh, look," I said faintly. "Vampires."

"Yes," Spencer said. "Good call."

A tall, white-blonde woman was standing outside the phonebooth, knocking politely, and I hated her instantly, on sight. First of all because she was a vampire. Second, because she was _gorgeous. _

She was the kind of woman who made me instantly, intensely aware that my hair was halfway fallen out of its ponytail, that my mascara was smeared, that my jeans were ragged at the bottom and ripped at the knee. She, on the other hand, was wearing a purple satin wrap dress and stiletto heels, hair as perfectly blown out as if a full styling team followed her around all day. And that look that said that she knew it. _Hated _her. Would have hated her even if she wasn't a vampire.

The other two vampires behind her were slightly less hatable, but only in comparison. Mostly because they were both men—even at my most ridiculous, I couldn't bring myself to envy the one's perfectly tousled brown bedhead hair or the other's effortlessly sculpted arm muscles. But I could hate them for being nasty bloodsucking killers, and I was going to do that.

"Spencer," the woman was saying pleasantly. "Hi."

"Hi there, Heidi," he replied, then tightened his jaw and narrowed his eyes, obviously concentrating.

I decided that it wasn't really like bug repellent, or even like a taser—more like a good hard shove. I saw them back up unwillingly as his eyes narrowed, almost skidding backward on the tile floor. He pushed them back five feet before he stopped—I wondered if he could do more, I wondered what his range was—and he put his hand on the hinge of the door, opening it outward to let us into the airport again. I got out ahead of him, my hand suddenly pins-and-needles as I pulled it from its squashed corner. I swore silently to myself and shook it at my side—if I was going to be fighting any epic battles here, it would be good to have use of both my hands. Of course, it seemed like he'd meant what he said about the whole vampire-repelling thing—those vampires were definitely being repelled.

"Come on, is that really necessary?" Heidi called from her new vantage point.

"Oh, absolutely," Spencer informed her. "A trip to Italy is not in my plans today."

"You'd love Italy," she purred. "With your hair, your complexion—you'd fit right in. You would love it."

"You know what I would not love?" he said. "Being a vampire. I really don't think I'd love that."

"D'you mind keeping it down?" the smaller male growled, glancing around. He blended way more than the other two, besides the whole ridiculous-otherwordly-attractiveness element—he had sort of a British look to him, a sharpness and evenness of features that suggested he should be onstage somewhere playing drums for a Brit-punk band. "This is an airport, you know."

"Which is exactly why I can talk as loud as I want," Spencer argued. "No one's paying attention, they're all late for their flights. I can say the word VAMPIRE as loudly as I WANT."

I flinched as he yelled the word, but he was absolutely right—not a single person so much as turned. They were all busy with their rolling suitcases and lost boarding passes and own little, unsupernatural lives. They had a built-in filter, called self-absorption. Hooray humanity.

"Leah Clearwater," the other vampire said suddenly, the big, muscular one. Boy, celebrity got old fast.

"Yeah, hi," I said wearily. "Want an autograph?"

"What will it get me on eBay?" the guy asked.

"Huh," I said acidly. "A funny vampire. That's a new one."

"I know, now you can die happy."

"Felix, _hush,_" Heidi chided.

Felix. Sounded familiar. Wait, Felix plus Italy…wait a second. "Wait a second!" It clicked. It had suddenly clicked. "You're Volturi, aren't you? You're all Volturi!"

Felix did a little bow, and the other two just smiled smugly in that horrible, horrible smug vampire way. "In the flesh," the tousle-haired guy said. Smugly.

"Well then, I hate you even more," I announced.

"Listen," Spencer said, putting a hand on my shoulder. I would allow it. He wasn't trying to pull me back and wasn't trying to shield me, just—a mild protectiveness, an announcement that I was with him. As long as he wasn't pushing or dragging me anywhere, I was good. "Heidi, Felix, Corin—nice to see you and all, but you guys need to leave."

"Sorry, Spence, we're here until the werewolf problem is solved," Heidi said, fidgeting with the hem of her dress—bringing attention to her legs, thanks, Heidi, as if we weren't aware already that you're a freaking _supermodel_. Was Spencer staring at her legs? I shifted my eyes sideways, trying to see if he was staring at her legs. "And you just happen to be a good part of that problem."

"Believe me, we would not be here if we didn't have to," Felix said melodramatically. "La bella Roma, she pines for us."

"'S true," Corin drawled. "We really hate London."

"Hey!" I objected. "London is great!"

This got me nothing but raised eyebrows from Corin and a complete blow-off from the other two—even if they knew who I was, I was not the focus of attention. Which was nice after the last few days, I guess, but I also didn't like to be _completely _ignored. There had to be some sort of balance here—then again, balance wasn't exactly my forte. If I was a tightrope walker I already would have fallen and broken my head open. For example, at the moment I was considering whether to jump up and down and yell for attention, but that just didn't seem like a smart idea.

"You know we're going to just keep coming after you," Heidi said, threat made a little more palatable with a heavy application of bedroom eyes. Seriously, was she trying to scare him or seduce him? "We're just going to keep trying to catch you off guard, surprise you—kill you, maybe."

"You know," Felix added. "Something like that."

"Kill me?" Spencer raised his own eyebrows. "Wow, you're right, now I really want to come with you. Thanks for helping me make up my mind."

"We're thinking of calling someone down from Rome," Heidi offered.

"Oh, don't sell yourself short," he said. "I refuse to believe that anyone could do a better job of annoying me than you guys."

"Love you too," Heidi said, in a tone that suggested that maybe she might not be kidding, and wouldn't _you _like to know. "But I meant someone with a mental ability. I wonder if you could protect yourself against those."

"Well, I guess we'll find out," Spencer said levelly.

"We definitely will," she said. "Caius is getting very uncomfortable with the werewolf population, he wants them gone. And he's not the only one taking an interest, honey, Aro is just _insane _with curiosity about you."

"Lucky me."

"Seriously," Corin said, folding his arms across his chest. "It's not every human that gets a standing invite into Aro's guard. You should be grateful."

"Yeah, I'll be sure to send him a thank-you card." I could tell Spencer was getting upset—he had that same expression that had been on his face as he'd had in the phonebooth, the expression that said he was a little sick of his life. That he was sick of being an object of interest. "Seriously, guys, leave. I want you to go away now."

"Sweetheart, you know you only have to ask," Heidi purred.

Spencer's eyes slitted, and the vampires were suddenly shoved back another ten feet, right into the center of the hall where they could be tripped over and yelled at by the harried passengers.

"Please."

--

"How late, exactly?" I asked Spencer, standing outside the security gates of the B terminal, waiting for Jacob.

He studied his watch, frowning. It was not a good sign. "About an hour and twenty minutes."

"An hour and twenty minutes," I repeated blankly. "How the hell did we do that?"

"Time flies when you're having fun, Leah."

"Oh yeah, Ferris wheel stunts and snappy vampire banter. My idea of fun," I said acidly. No, technically none of this was Spencer's fault, but was I going to take it out on him? Most likely.

He seemed to be pretty okay with that. "So what do you think the chances are that we've completely missed your Jacob?"

"Pretty good, Spencer!" I yelled. "Pretty damn good!" I was looking around, but I couldn't see any hulking Native American werewolf warriors standing out like a sore thumb in the crowd. It made sense—our instincts were not to stay in one place for long, and Jacob was one of the antsiest of us all. No way he would wait for an hour and a half.

I pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket and flipped it open—and it was dead. Thank you, Murphy's law. I stared at the black screen for a few seconds, hoping that it would suddenly light up with the words 'just kidding!'. "Damn!" I yelled again. "My charger's in my luggage."

"At the club?" he asked, expression flicking through fear very quickly before coming back to calm.

"At the club," I confirmed.

"Well then, I guess the vacation's over," he said tonelessly.

"I'm sorry," I said immediately. "We don't have to go back."

"No," he said. "It's a couple hours past sundown, I'm surprised they haven't dragged me back already."

"Spencer, no, we can—"

"Leah," he interrupted firmly. "You can't save me."

Tricky. I wanted to save him. I was supposed to save him. He was human, he was within my jurisdiction. Plus, when he got upset like this, his jaw tightened and his shoulders collapsed in, and I just—God. I just wanted to help him. Was help the right word? I wanted to help him.

He had already turned around, walking back down the hallway as if determined not to give me a chance to do anything stupid. Or anything at all. "Come on," he called over his shoulder. "You want to find your friend, don't you? Let's get back to the club."


	12. Chapter 12

I stood outside Lycaon, staring up at the sky with my hands on my hips. "What do you think?" I asked Spencer, who was five steps from the door and looking like a man walking to the electric chair. "Full moon?"

"Nah," Spencer said, studying the moon just grazing the London skyline. "Almost full, though. One day till."

"How do you know?" I demanded.

"Believe me, Leah," he said flatly. "You really start to keep track of these things."

We stood outside the club with the bass beat pulsing dully through us, neon and window-strobe in our eyes. Standing there shuffling our feet and trying to convince ourselves to go inside. I was afraid to see Ryan. Spencer was afraid of—I don't know. Life, I guess. It was starting to get really cold outside, but we just kept standing there, not looking at each other, arms folded tightly across our chests.

"Huh," he said in the tone of a person pointing out something boring and helpful, like a tour guide. "This song has a salsa beat."

"Oh, you salsa?" I picked up on his pointlessness at once, fully willing to be pointless. "I used to know how."

"Really?" I know, I know, I didn't look like a salsa-dancing kind of girl.

"Yeah, I had someone teach me," I said vaguely, folding my arms tighter. "A couple years ago." Sam. Sam Sam Sam.

"Oh yeah? You remember any?"

"Spencer Weston, are you stalling?" I asked reproachfully, mostly to distract myself from the fact that he'd stepped forward and taken my left hand, put his other hand on my waist. Wow. Yikes. Suddenly not all that cold.

"Yes," he said. "Absolutely."

It was either the bass or my blood pumping, providing a perfect Latin beat—I just was not used to being touched, and not like this. Not with hands on my waist and someone actually looking me in the eyes, not even afraid of what might be in them. What was probably in them. I tried very hard to make myself relax, and to let him lead.

I was usually very observant. There was really no good excuse for letting Ryan sneak up on us, none at all. I should have been paying attention.

"Leah." We jumped apart like teenagers caught kissing, flushed and embarrassed, rearranging clothes and tucking hair behind ears. "I thought I smelled you out here."

"You _smelled _her?" Spencer said. "Creepy."

Perhaps, I thought in retrospect, we should have jumped less far apart. Because when Ryan lashed out and grabbed Spencer's arm and threw him into the door hard enough to crack the glass down the side, I was a little too far away to do anything about it. Except yell. "Hey!" I yelled unhelpfully. "What's your problem?"

Ryan was still looking at Spencer, glaring at him with that specific, bristling male look of the Alpha staring down a rival. Uh oh. "What are you doing with her?" he growled. _Uh _oh. Ryan was in love with me. I had forgotten. People in love did weird and dumb things, and angry things—I could certainly attest to that.

"I was _watching _her, you _told _me to," Spencer said aggrievedly, one hand pressed to his shoulder as he struggled back upright. "You remember that, right? It was just this morning, Ryan, you're the one who said it."

"I'll tell you what I didn't say, I didn't say to _dance _with her!" Ryan yelled—I had _never _heard him yell, never heard him even raise his voice. "You want to explain that, Weston?"

Ack. This was getting very bad very fast. Ryan was getting jealous and dangerous, getting closer to Spencer, angrier and that much closer to putting him through a wall. Usually Spencer knew enough to stop antagonizing him, but Spencer wouldn't shut up either, what was _wrong _with him? Men!! "Wait, wait, wait," I said quickly, getting myself between them before Ryan could do something to make himself feel better. Obviously, if anyone was going to fix this, it was me. It was a little unusual to be the responsible, levelheaded one, but I was going to give it a shot. Something needed to be done, and that something was lying my head off. "Ryan, calm down. We weren't dancing, we were, uh—I fell. I tripped over the curb and kind of fell on top of him, we were just trying to get untangled."

"You weren't dancing?" he asked dubiously. Was he going to buy it? I would probably lose some respect for him if he did, it was a pretty lame lie.

"No, yuck!" I said vehemently. "Ew. He's human. …Yuck." _Please buy it, please buy it. _I could defend myself from Ryan. Spencer could not. I had _seen _the things boys did to each other when they got jealous. "_No, _I wasn't dancing with him."

"Oh." He was cooling fast, willing to swallow my explanation because he liked hearing it. "Okay then."

I breathed a very very quiet sigh of relief, exchanging glances with Spencer over Ryan's shoulder. "Okay then," I said. See, this was why it sucked to care about things—when I'd left the club this morning, I had been in total control of this relationship. Ryan could try to flatter and bully me, but he really had no leverage at all, couldn't make me do a thing. And now, even if he didn't know it—he had something on me. He had Spencer. Whatever Spencer was to me, and God knows I hadn't a clue what was going on there, I at least cared enough to not want him hurt, and that meant I had to deal with the people who might hurt him. "So—um, how was your day, Ryan?"

"I missed you," he said simply. Genuinely? I hoped not genuinely. He reached across the space between us, pulling me in for a hug. Acting like I was a fiancée of six months, a warm and affectionate relationship. "You were safe, weren't you?"

I made a face at Spencer, still leaning against the cracked glass door, and he rolled his eyes. "Yes, I was fine," I fibbed, glossing over the whole stalking vampires part. "Just did some sightseeing. It was fine."

"I'm glad you're back, Leah."

"Yeah, well," I said, with a brave stab at tactfulness. "I'm actually—not staying for long. You may have noticed I didn't actually pick up my friend. We missed his flight and I need my phone to call him, but it's dead. I left my charger here."

"Leah, you're exhausted." He took my elbow and led me carefully toward the club, as if maybe if we moved slowly enough I wouldn't notice. He had this specific gameplan when it came to me, kind of an ocean-tide philosophy—wearing me down, washing up against me again and again until I finally gave way, the sand pulling out from under my feet. "Come inside, sleep for a few hours." Come into my web, said the spider to the fly.

Thing was, I _was _tired—again, what was the point of having superhuman abilities if you didn't get anything actually useful, like being able to skip whole nights of sleep? I wanted to be part of the supernatural species that could do _that. _And it _did _take at least four hours to charge my phone. He opened the door for me and shepherded me inside, reaching his other arm around to grab Spencer by the back of his shirt and drag him through after us. "Ow," Spencer complained—mostly just being obnoxious, but it still made me frown where Ryan couldn't see me.

"It's good to have you back, Weston," Ryan said. "We could have all been attacked and killed by vampires while you were gone."

"Yeah, that _would _be a shame," Spencer deadpanned. "Plus, you were down a bartender."

"Oh, the night's almost over anyway," Ryan said breezily. "Everyone's a little exhausted from the excitement last night. Leah, darling, you wore us out. You are just too interesting."

"No arguments there." What was_ wrong_ with Spencer? I wanted to kick him in the shin.

Ryan glared briefly at him, then pushed him towards the nearest approaching werewolf. "Soren, take him to his room. I don't have the patience to deal with him tonight."

I kept his eyes as Soren pulled him toward the stairs, annoyance and resignation and regret—trying to watch where he was going even as people started crowding in on me again, the familiar press of people wanting to talk to me, touch me, take me places and ask me about every detail of my entire life. It was disconcerting and a little overwhelming—to go from the open-air London to this place—so closed and gray and small, hot and muggy from a hundred people exhaling.

The beat pounded through to the back of my head, and everyone stood too close. I thought I might have a headache in the morning. I thought I might scream.

--

It was a nice room. Kind of classy, upscale hotel-style furnishings—and of course made much nicer by the fact that I was totally alone in it with the door shut behind me.

I had told Ryan that I needed to sleep, but I didn't know if I was going to be sleeping anytime soon. I felt unbelievably tense, like a guitar string turned tighter and tighter until it was read to snap—millimeters away from snapping back and hurting someone. Entirely too tense; buzzing, crackling electric. I felt under too much pressure, too watched. I was standing near the entrance of the room with my charger in one hand and my phone in another, leaning against the door. Trying to figure out why I felt like I was going to be sick.

After a few minutes, I dropped them both and moved toward the window, opening it in one brisk movement, kneeling on the bed so I could stick my whole head and shoulders outside. _Breathe, Leah. Breathe in, breathe out. _

I took a few moments to calm myself—what was this, homesickness, claustrophobia?—my forearms propped on the windowsill, my hair falling down into my eyes and mouth as I breathed. It helped a little—like taking a cold shower after drinking too much. The coolness and the neutral sounds of the city felt much better than anything inside, and it half made me want to jump right out the window and run away. Of course I couldn't, because my stupid cell phone still wasn't stupid charged.

There was always the alternative—I could shift. I could shift into my wolf form and have Jacob's thoughts in my head at once, his exact location and reasons for not being where I expected him. But _God, _I did _not _want anyone in my head today—I had _never _wanted anyone in my head. The more I stayed human, the more I realized how _nice _it was to have my personal, private thoughts, well—personal and private. Shifting, I had decided, was for emergencies.

I pulled myself the rest of the way out of the window and got my feet on the windowsill, reaching up the outside wall until I could grab the edge of the roof. I moved sideways until my feet were off the windowsill—and then I kept moving, sliding along the side of the building with my feet braced flat on the wall. I don't know what it was with me and climbing places today—probably it was some kind of manifestation of my inner emotion state, I have no idea. A psychologist would know.

I counted the windowsills down the wall as I climbed, finally stopping at the fourth one, putting my feet solidly on the windowsill so that I could pry the window open. It resisted a little—locked from the inside, maybe even more than once, but it wasn't hard for me. I forced it open and slid into the room.

Spencer looked very surprised to see me climbing in his window. I don't blame him—I didn't quite understand why I was doing it myself. "Um," I said uncomfortably. "Hi."

"Hi," he said blankly. "Do you need something?" He was sitting against the far wall with his knees up to his chest, his arms propped on his knees—looking at me. Except he didn't look at me the way everyone else did, not that spotlight marquee kind of looking, that blinded me and made me wonder if my hair looked okay. It wasn't like that with him.

"I don't need anything," I said, trying to find a way to explain why I'd climbed in his window. "You just—make me calm."

"Oh yeah?" he asked mildly, still not moving.

"Yeah."

He looked at me for another few seconds, the moon cutting the angles of his face out silver. "Come here," he said.

I walked across the room and sat down next to him, and he put his arm around my shoulders. We sat on the floor beside each other and watched the almost-full moon centered in his window, watching it as if we could see it ripen and swell to full, if we just looked hard enough. I thought that his room was quieter than anywhere else in the house. I could hear myself breathe.


	13. Chapter 13

I woke up in with both my arms wrapped around Spencer's waist and my head resting in the hollow where his shoulder met his neck. I stared blearily up at him for a few seconds, trying to remember where I was, what was going on. Then suddenly realization snapped in, his face coming into focus, and—panic hit. Rolled in on me like a prairie thunderstorm, sudden strikes of energy. I was up and out of his arms in seconds, shoving him away, ending up pressed against the far wall as if I might break through it any second in my desperation to get away.

"What?" he asked, barely awake himself, looking around to see what had caused this sudden reaction. "Leah, what is it?"

"Oh my God," I was muttering frantically, checking myself over. "Oh my God. Okay, clothes are still on. Nothing happened."

"What the—of course nothing happened, what do you _mean?_" He was suddenly _very _awake, and pretty offended. "You think I would just—"

"I don't know, okay?" I yelled at him. "I don't know what that was."

"It wasn't _anything,_" he started exasperatedly, but oh, it was not the right thing to say.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, IT WASN'T ANYTHING?"

He was walking toward me with both hands up, surrender and protection. "Leah, calm down. You know that wasn't what I meant. I just meant that I would never hurt you, I would never do anything to—"

"Oh, like I haven't heard _that _before," I spat. "Get away! Get back, don't touch me!"

"Leah," he said bemusedly. Not moving anymore, just standing across the room from me with an expression like I was confusing him absolutely to death. "Why are you like this? What _happened _to you?"

"_Men_ happened to me!" I yelled. I couldn't believe I'd let myself get into this position again, someone's arms around me so tight they could hurt me if they wanted, break me if they wanted. _Vulnerable. _"You're all the same, okay? You're just all the same!"

"May I remind you," Spencer yelled back, frustrated at my ridiculousness, "that you were the one climbing in _my _window?"

"Well, you didn't have to—_hold _me like that!" I argued hysterically. "Why did you do that? _Sam _used to hold me like that, okay? Exactly like that, and you know what? Didn't mean a thing!"

"Who's Sam?" he asked blankly.

My jaw snapped shut. Whoops. _Leah. Seriously. Must not let mouth run away with self when mad. _"Um," I said shiftily. "Nobody."

He was going to ask again, I know he was—but suddenly there was the sound of metal on metal at the door. Key in lock. We exchanged a sudden frantic deer-in-headlights look, frozen with the realization that I was in Spencer's room at six in the morning. Not good. Not explainable.

He moved first, grabbing me and pulling me across the room, opening the closet and shoving me unceremoniously inside. "Please be quiet," he hissed. And then he shut the door.

It was hard to be indignant and quiet at the same time. I stood there for a few seconds and made huffy noises, wrestling away his coats and sweaters, but when I heard the door open I went quiet. I wasn't _that _mad at him.

"Weston." Well, at least it wasn't Ryan. In fact, I didn't even recognize the voice—could be any one of the seventy or so wolves who had been at the club last night, but I knew that only about twenty of them actually stayed in the building. I don't know. All British people sounded the same. "What the hell are you doing in here?"

"Doing?" He sounded a little too over-innocent, a little too quick to answer. _Come on, honey. Sell it. _"I'm not doing anything. Absolutely nothing."

"There was yelling," the guy said, but he sounded a little unsure. Obviously not one of the terribly bright ones, but I could only be grateful. "I heard yelling."

"Maybe you were dreaming, Kent," Spencer offered helpfully. "I don't know what to tell you. I mean, who would I be yelling at?"

_Ack! Don't say that? _I thought furiously at him from the closet, trying to stand perfectly still, not touch any of the hangers or clothes. _Don't make him think about it! _Fortunately, thinking didn't seem to be one of Kent's strong points.

"Just shut up, okay?" Kent said crossly. "It's early."

"You got it, Kent," Spencer agreed immediately. "Sounds great. See you later."

There was a sound of the door closing and a bolt being thrown, and then Spencer was opening the door on me again. "Hi, Leah," he said pleasantly. "How are you?"

"Oh, I am just _great,_" I snapped. "Closets are my favorite place. Here's a question, Spencer—if you're supposed to be such a poor, beleaguered kidnapped guy, why do you have so many sports coats?"  
"Come on," he said wryly. "Guy's got to look good for his ruthless captors. So do you want to want to get out of this closest, or what?"

He offered me a hand but I swatted it away—I had had _enough _touching for today, thank you very much. "Stop it," I said, shoving my way past him into the room.

"Stop _what?_" he asked reasonably. "Physical contact?"

"Yes!" I yelled, then thought about it. "Maybe!"

"Leah, please, please hush," he pleaded, looking like he wanted to tackle me and put a hand over my mouth, but hindered by my suddenly sensitive personal bubble.

"Oh yeah," I remembered. "We're, um—I guess I should go."

"I really think you should."

_Ouch. _And this was why I didn't do relationships. Because no matter how often that person made you feel like sunshine and rainbows, they spent just as much time making you feel like crap. You cared about them and so you cared what they said, cared about what they did—and what they said could be petty and thoughtless and cruel. What they did could be devastating. I hated that anyone had the power to make me feel like this with five words.

"Fine," I said frostily, trying to ice the sting of his words. "I probably should. See you later."

"_Leah._" He walked quickly after me as I went to the window, running a hand through his hair. "You know that's not what I meant. It's just that I have this interest in not getting us killed, all right?"

"You don't have to explain," I said, sliding the window open. I had a very low threshold for injury, and it had been passed. I was out. There was never going to be another Sam—nobody was ever going to get close enough. "See you, Spencer."

"Leah—" I wasn't listening. I was out the window and gone.

--

"Come on, Jacob," I muttered to myself, tapping finger on my knee as the phone rang. "Pick up."

Thank God my phone was charged. I wished for it to be charged for the rest of my life. One thing was for sure—the next time I left, I was taking my charger _with _me. "Pick _up, _Jacob!" I yelled.

He picked up. One minute I was shouting at the receiver, taking my frustration out on my phone as always, and the next I was hearing his voice out from the other end. "Leah?" The familiar tenor growl of Jacob's voice, too mature for his age.

I pressed the phone back to my ear, scrambling over myself to answer as if I thought he might suddenly go away. "Jacob? Jacob, hi, I'm here!"

"Leah, where have you _been? _I was really worried! I mean, you didn't shift or anything, I thought you were _dead._"

"Oh hush, it's not a big deal." Now that I'd gotten over the initial joy of making contact, my natural annoyance at Jacob was resurfacing fast. "You should have waited, we just missed your flight by—"

"An hour?" _An hour and a half, _I corrected guiltily in my head. "I should have waited an hour?"

"Yeah, you should have waited," I retorted. "Where did you think you were going to _go_? You're so _stupid, _Jacob, you never _think_!"

"Shut up," he said. "Just shut up, okay. I need to tell you something."

I caught the change in his voice, like a pressure drop when a storm rolls in—the sudden warning that things were about to get bad. "What?" I asked warily. "Jacob, what is it?"

"I, um…" he hedged. "I couldn't get a hold of you, Leah—I didn't know what had happened—"

"Spit it out, Jacob!"

"I called Sam," he confessed. "I thought something had gone wrong, Leah, so I called him. He's flying to London."


	14. Chapter 14

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry this one's a little shorter than usual, it's a segue chapter. Also: all you reviewers are fabulous and I love you. Not even kidding. It's love.

--

"Ryan, this is Jacob," I said. "Jacob, this is Ryan…my—fiancée."

I choked a little on the word, but I made it through. Jacob raised his eyebrows at me and I smiled blandly back at him, forcing myself to reach across and take Ryan's hand. I could see him smiling smugly at me out of the corner of my eye, and I dug my nails into the back of his hand to remind him that this was not what he wanted and not what he was going to get—and kept smiling.

"Ryan Glass," my fake fiancée said, reaching across to shake Jacob's hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Jacob Black," he said, still looking dubious. Jacob knew me—he knew what my type was (Sam) and who my type was not (bland, blond British guys wearing polo shirts). "Um, congratulations."

Jacob wasn't the most subtle guy in the world, but he wasn't going to come out and accuse me of not being in love with the guy whose hand I was holding. As far as I knew, no on had ever faked an imprinting before, so how could he know? Ryan sure wasn't going to say anything. And just because we weren't staring soulfully into each others' eyes didn't mean we couldn't potentially be in love. I doubted any future love of mine would involve much besotted staring—I'd already been that route once, it wouldn't go the same way ever again. If you're too busy staring at the guy, you can't see things coming. Like horrible devastating life-altering heartbreak.

I glowered at Jacob and pulled Ryan closer, fake love through proximity. "Jacob," I said to distract him. "When is Sam getting here?"

"Sam?" Ryan inquired politely. His world was getting a little crowded, and the club was running out of guest rooms.

Behind us, I saw Spencer look up, paying close attention to the name that he'd heard twice now but still had no context. He and Jacob were the only people in the room who had an idea of where that name fit into my life—a wedge stuck in the center of me like in a growing tree to drive it apart.

"You know," I said vaguely, hyperaware that Spencer was listening. "Sam. I told you about Sam. He's just flying up, is all." Spencer smiled ruefully, shook his head, and went back to cleaning the bar. "Did you try to call him again?" I asked Jacob, worrying at the question, worried at the thought of seeing the person I'd run away from. I'd flown from him and he was flying after me. Not fair.

"I've called him five times," Jacob said resignedly—he thought I was annoying, but he also knew that this was mostly his fault. "He's on the flight already, he has his phone turned off. Maybe we can catch him on his layover."

"All right, when is his layover?"

"I don't know."

"Well, why don't you find the hell out?"

Jacob looked uncomfortable. Usually, he could deal with me easily and to spare, but this was different. He was dealing with me on top of several other things—new surroundings, jet lag, and the fact that the London werewolves were considerably less welcoming of a full-grown shapeshifter-wolf male than they were of an attractive breeding-age female. One of the first questions that Ryan had asked him was whether he was imprinted, and had seemed a little put out when Jacob had said no. I guess since there was really only one of me, everyone was a rival, and Jacob wasn't one he could control. He seemed to have a problem with that.

"Okay," Jacob said uneasily. "I'll try. You should try too, though, you should call home. Your mom is freaking out that she hasn't heard from you."

Ahh. The Mom card. I guess that's what I got for being bossy. As I glared at him, David came up beside Ryan and said, "Lots of cloudcover today, Ryan. Here's the forecast," and handed him a folded sheet of newspaper.

I was about to say something snarky like "thanks for the forecast," but then I got it. "Right," I said. "Cloudcover. Vampires."

Ryan kissed me on the forehead and I almost slugged him—I barely contained myself. One did not slug one's fiancée. It was not considered polite. "That's right, hon. The weather is a problem for us here."

"Oh believe me, we sympathize," Jacob informed him immediately, reacting to Ryan's condescending tone. "We're from Washington."

"I don't know where that is," Ryan said breezily.

"Funny, that doesn't surprise me," Jacob growled.

Seriously. Was it even possible for two men to be in a room together without eventually challenging each other to a duel? "_Jacob,_" I said through my teeth. "Why don't we go—unpack." I had to get them away from each other, which unfortunately meant that I had to end up with one or the other of them—but I'd been dealing with Ryan for days now, I was going to take a shot at dealing with Jacob instead.

When I grabbed Jacob and dragged him out of the room, though, I had to admit I was fully prepared for some bloodshed. Jacob and I were those kind of people who were always going to clash, _always_, like two rams butting heads over and over, knocking their brains loose, knocking themselves silly. If either of us had been weak in any way, or stupid, we would have gotten along so much better.

Surprisingly, we didn't actually kill each other. We were too busy with our current problems to do that, especially the one where Sam was flying to London and I wanted him to go away. By the time we'd finished calling home to get Sam's flight information, and slogged through the obligatory hours of convincing everyone that I was fine and healthy and yes, coming back someday (maybe), we had of course missed Sam's connecting flight completely. This made me punch a wall.

Ryan poked his head in the guest room after I did this, no doubt trying to figure out what the sudden smashing sound had been. He saw me with my arm halfway in the wall and raised his eyebrows. "Leah—is everything okay?"

"Yes," I said blackly, pulling my fist out of the wall. "Everything's fine. Sorry about your wall."

"It's fine," he dismissed with a wave of his hand. "I wanted to come see you two anyway."

"Oh yeah?" Jacob said suspiciously. "About what?"

"Sun's almost down," Ryan said. "We were going to head off hunting soon, I just wanted to see if either of you wanted to join us."

"Join you?" I echoed. I had to admit, I was curious—they were the kind that shifted only under the full moon, I hadn't seen them as wolves yet. Then again, there was something about the way Ryan said the word _hunting. _

"Yeah," Ryan told me. "Best three days of the month, Leah. It'll be lots of fun—we'll run around London some, kill some humans. You should come."

"Excuse me?" I repeated. "Kill some—humans?"


	15. Chapter 15

There was a certain tone of voice that people reserved for saying things that were very ordinary and slightly boring—a flat, matter-of-fact sound that they picked up, like they were barely aware of what they were saying because they'd said it so many times. Usually this tone was used for saying things like, "Oh, look, the sky is blue," or "Chrissy, sweetheart, don't jump on the couch." I had never before heard someone use that tone of voice to say "We're going to kill some humans."

"Excuse me?" I gasped at Ryan. "Kill some—humans?"

He was already turning to go—actually that casual about homicide, this was unbelievable. I mean, I'd heard it mentioned a few times since I'd been here, the predilections of these particular wolves, but mostly I'd been kind of laughing uncomfortably like it was a joke and ignoring it. Really, kill people? They were going to _kill _people? It was possible I was genetically obligated to stop them.

"Yes," Ryan said, sounding surprised. "We do have to eat, Leah."

"Eat steak!" I said hysterically. "Eat green beans! You don't have to eat _people, _Ryan!"

"Why shouldn't we?" he asked, nonplussed. "It's just the way we're made, Leah. We shouldn't deny our natures."

"Bullshit," Jacob sliced in viciously. "There's nothing to life but denying our natures. Civilization _depends _on us denying our natures long enough to make the world work."

"And what," Ryan said coolly, "is so great about civilization, exactly?"

"Well," I said acidly, "for one thing, no one's eating anybody."

"Leah, you don't understand," Ryan said simply, not at all upset, and turned back down the stairs to leave.

I chased him down like a jealous girlfriend, not letting him walk away, he'd just told me he was going to _kill _people for God's sake, it wasn't a situation for ignore-it-and-it'll-go-away. "Ryan! _Ryan!_" I yelled, catching him at the bottom of the stairs. "You do know that I can't let you do this, right? I am not going to let you do this!"

"Leah, honey," he said, still affectionate, non-confrontational. "This is just the way things are. You don't get mad at lions for eating antelope, do you? It's just the way the food chain works, and humans are fools to think they're on top of it. You can't stop me, Leah."

I didn't react much to this because I knew it wasn't true—there wasn't a lot I didn't believe I could do, especially if I was angry. Jacob, though—wow, Jacob _reacted. _He pushed himself off the wall and landed snarling in front of Ryan, half wolf without shifting at all, lips pulled back over his teeth. Five inches taller than Ryan at least.

Ryan turned back to me with a pained expression. "What?" I demanded. Did he _expect _something from me?

"Could you control him, please?"

"Control him?" Wish he'd said _that _one a little quieter.

"_Control _me?" Jacob yelled. Very bad. Very very bad.

Ryan took another look at Jacob, seconds away from taking his head off, and realized that maybe he needed to recalculate his strategy. He took two quick steps forward and Jacob stepped forward to meet him, blocking him into the stairwell with a growl rolling out of the back of his throat. "Hey," he said, holding up his hands. "Just let me get past, all right?"

"You are not," Jacob said through his teeth, "going out there." Jacob didn't even _know _these people, this city full of people he'd never seen in his life, but he was going to stand in front of them. That was Jacob Black for you. Take a bow, hon, you're a hero and a moron.

Werewolves didn't move like vampires—vampires were faster, hands down, there was no denying that. We had the force, though. We were the muscle to their speed, moving like trainwrecks and titans. When they moved they looked like they were dancing—when we moved we looked like demolition. And so seeing Ryan slam into Jacob with his shoulder was enough to make anyone wince, make me want to cover my eyes.

We still hadn't resolved the who-is-stronger species issue, but it didn't matter here—Jacob hadn't expected him to lunge forward like that, and let himself be knocked out of the way as Ryan slid past him. He caught Ryan's arm as he went past and threw him, straight back into the wall under the window hard enough to make the glass rattle in the pane. Well, that was that. Really no going back now, no pretending that this was all going to work out just fine. Jacob had thrown Ryan into a wall.

Ryan, strangely enough, didn't seem to mind. He stood up slowly under the window, smiling, and the light from the window washed over him—white-silver washout moonlight. I knew that I'd lost track of time. And I suddenly knew why he was smiling.

When we shifted, it was—a little traumatic, at first, the explosiveness of it. The strangeness of your body's sudden impulse to change, its need to be something other than what it had been for seventeen years. But it was not painful, and after awhile, it wasn't even hard. It felt very natural, almost—magical. Can I say that? I don't know. But that's what it felt like—it had the taste of a tribal dance around a fire, feathers and woodsmoke, the dark russet feel of heritage. Shaman-magical. This was something that had always been contained in us, in the history of us. I imagined that if someone watched us shift, they would think it was beautiful.

Watching Ryan shift was not beautiful—it was painful. Definitely painful—goosebumps running up my arms as I watched his bones start to break and reform, changing his silhouette in jagged, shuddering bursts. Bones bursting through his skin and disappearing, crunching him over, making him long and huge with teeth bursting out of his mouth, claws bursting out of his hands. I found myself taking a step backward, then another—horrified to see him twisting and breaking into form, the horror movie version of what I'd been doing for years. I had never known that it could look like this.

And when we shifted, we did not lose ourselves. We picked up a few extras, extra senses, extra speed, but we stayed ourselves. We still had intelligence in our eyes, words in our heads, we could still make decisions that meant something. I looked in Ryan's eyes and there was nothing—absolute glassy blankness and savagery. When we were wolves we looked like wolves, oversized animals with goofy smiles. Ryan looked like a monster.

His grey wedge head swung toward us, and I grabbed Jacob reflexively, pulling him back. "Jacob, we should get out of here," I warned him, somehow ending up as the voice of reason again. My world was getting truly crazy if this was the kind of thing I said now. "Come on, we should go."

"Are you kidding, Leah?" His voice had gone edgy, quiet and calm—as if suddenly he knew he had the upper hand. "This guy's a joke." A _joke? _Sure, he was a smaller wolf than us, but God he looked dangerous in a way that we couldn't match. We needed to stop. We needed to think about this. "We can take him."

"I don't want to take him, Jacob!" I yelled. "Let's not take him, okay? Let's just not!"

Fortunately, we didn't seem to be all that interesting to wolf-Ryan—his head was already swinging back around the open room, where other lean wolves in shades of gray were slipping out of the corners and hallways to circle in the center. Ryan gave them a short bark and then padded over, completing the wide, jagged circle. Then he sat back on his haunches, lifted his head to the ceiling, and howled.

I'll admit, it freaked me out. The sound froze my bones solid, skittering through my veins—the slice of it, the horror sound. Where we were protectors they were monsters. They were what we were meant to protect against. But I was still part human somewhere in me, and their howl made me so I couldn't move.

I broke out of it when they did, breaking their circle to run, slipping out the door one after another in a swift greyline infestation. Spreading out into the city. I saw them move and my blood started pumping normally, my breaths coming back evenly—they had frightened me once but it wouldn't happen again. I had heard the worst sounds they had in them, and I was over it.

Before I could even react, I heard the sound of fabric ripping beside me—I turned to see Jacob shifted already, a red-brown wolf bigger and stronger than anything they could be. "Jacob," I said. "Hey. Jacob, no." He ignored me and he moved, leaning on his back legs to leap forward, covering nearly a third of the room in one bound. "JACOB, NO! STOP IT! YOU COME BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!"

I ran after him as he leapt to the door, but I hadn't shifted, he beat me easily, almost a block away by the time I caught myself on the doorjamb, leaning out after him. "JACOB! YOU'RE A FREAKING MORON, DO YOU KNOW THAT?" I knew I should shift and go after him, run beside him, be his wingman like I'd been trained. But after so long out of my wolf form, it wasn't my immediate instinct now, and I had to pause. I had to think about it, and maybe a little too long.

Unfortunately, my decision was made for me. Because as I stood there in the doorway, Spencer came walking up behind me, drying a glass and looking out on the chaos with a mild sort of detached interest. And the instant Spencer came walking up beside me, something whizzed though the air over me and hit him, square on the side of his head. There was time for a split-second of shock and pain to pass over his face, and then he crumpled, sliding down the doorframe at my side.

Oddly enough, my first reaction was to drop down to him and make sure he was okay, but my second instinct made it very clear that there was a _threat,_ and it needed _dealing _with. I turned and found out exactly how much of a threat there really was.

The three Volturi were standing just outside of the door looking very satisfied with themselves—Felix was throwing a rock up and down in one hand like a baseball pitcher, a small pile of good-sized rocks at his feet. Obviously, I thought too calmly, the list of things Spencer could repel did not include rocks. This was a quite significant hole in his defenses.

"Oh look," I said. "Vampires again."


	16. Chapter 16

"Hey look, Heidi," Corin said to Felix, hands in his pockets and staring down at the unconscious Spencer like he was a sort of interesting science project. "You were right."

"Not like it's shocking," Heidi said, shaking her hair back.

"Shut up," I snapped. I was _not _in the mood for Heidi's preening, not after someone had thrown a rock at Spencer's head, thank you _very _much. "I can't believe you just threw a rock at him! What are you in, fifth grade?"

"Hey," Felix shrugged, unapologetic. "You do what you have to."

"Speaking of," Heidi said breezily. "We're going to have to kill you now."

I barely batted an eye—I'd already used up my intimidation quota for today, I was really not going to be afraid of these guys. Freaky moon werewolves were a novelty, like slasher movies or haunted houses that made you scream on the first time through—vampires were old news. "Yeah," I said. "I don't know if that's going to happen."

"Well, of course you could just step out of the way and let us take Spencer," Felix said thoughtfully. "Sorry. Forgot to give you that option."

"No."

"Well, there we go then," he said pleasantly. "No big deal. We can just kill you."

"Uh huh," I said wryly, moving my feet into a wider stance. "_Try._"

They tried.

True, I wasn't exactly staring at Corin when he moved—I tended to keep my eyes away from that one, he had a default expression of bitter crankiness that wasn't good for the mood—but I doubted I would have been able to follow him even if I was looking. Normal vampire movement was a bit like lightning—blurred bright strike-movements, dizzying but visible. Corin seemed to just—appear, with nothing but a slight comet-trail of movement where he'd passed. There was literally no time to react, just to get slammed into, tackled to the ground—and then he was gone, moving so quickly it was blinding, grabbing Spencer by his collar.

He was so fast he'd be gone by the time I stood, so I stayed on the ground and lashed out at him with my feet, scissoring his legs out from under him and snatching Spencer away as he fell. I knew I had _seconds, _fastest guy I'd ever _seen, _so I just rolled inside the doorway with Spencer and shut the door behind me, a flimsy barrier between me and three suddenly angry vampires.

"Spencer," I slapped him lightly on the face as Felix's fist came crashing through the door, had to get him _up, _before the door went to splinters, before we all _died. _"Come on, Spencer. Wake up. _Wake _up."

Apparently it wasn't going to be that easy. He stayed limply unconscious, bleeding down the side of his temple where the rock had hit. "Oh jeez—" I bit off as Felix's fist came through the door again, this time near the hinges so that they creaked painfully, a sort of pre-death warning. I dragged him quickly behind the bar, which again wouldn't do much good, but it was like in movies when a psycho killer is chasing the heroine through a house and she shuts doors behind her, turns chairs over in his path—any barrier between them and us was going to be a good thing.

"Spencer!" I yelled at him. "Wake _up!_ This is not a request!!" Nothing. I needed smelling salts, a bucket of water to dump over him, but the closet I had was Bacardi. I grabbed a bottle anyway and broke the neck off, then poured the whole thing on his face.

Bacardi did the trick. He came instantly awake, spitting rum, but I didn't have time for him to recover—just as he sat up, the door burst from its frame, practically in pieces as it fell and followed closely behind by Felix, Corin, and Heidi. "Spencer, _shield_! Do your repelling thing! Do it now!"

He could barely see for the alcohol in his eyes, but he trusted me and the urgency of my voice. His green eyes went to slits just as Corin vaulted over the bar, far ahead of the other two already—and slammed into air just above us, bouncing off as if he'd run into a wall. "Oh," Spencer said, watching Corin fall back snarling, with the stunned expression of a person in a shark cage. "Wow. Good idea."

"Yeah, thanks," I said breathlessly. I didn't do very well with close calls. "I do what I can."

"_Really?_" Heidi yelled from ten feet away. "Really, Spencer? Why are you making this so hard?"

"I don't know," he said, standing shakily, touching the side of his head and bringing his fingers away bloodslicked. "Nothing better to do, I guess. Did you—_throw _something at me?"

"Yes," Felix said pragmatically, and picked up a nearby stool and threw that at him, too. Clearly not one to give up easily. I hooked my arm around Spencer's waist and jerked him sideways, pulling him out of the way so that the stool hit behind us, breaking still more bottles of alcohol. Honestly, it was a wonder they could keep things in stock at all.

Spencer swore quietly and reacted by pushing them another twenty-five feet, almost halfway across the room. I wondered how far they could throw, but this was at least a safer bet. "Leave me," he yelled, "ALONE."

"NO," Felix yelled back. Well, there you had it. The root of all our problems. Spencer telling people to leave him alone and other people telling him that really wasn't something they were interested in. Why did he have to be so damn _special_?

Spencer slitted his eyes and they slid back again, almost out of yelling range and maybe out of throwing range. I wondered if he could push them straight through the walls. "GO AWAY!" he yelled.

"EVEN IF WE LEAVE NOW," Heidi informed him. "YOU KNOW WE'LL JUST BE BACK."

"I DON'T CARE," he said, waving his hands. "I DON'T! JUST _GO._"

Corin left first—he shrugged fluidly, elegant and annoyed and bored, and headed for the door. As if to say it really wasn't important. That he knew the outcome already, so what did it matter if there were delays. Heidi was a little more upset, throwing us a face-melting glare as she followed him because she was _not _the kind of girl to take defeat in stride, and she wanted us to know it. Felix just grinned, winked, and walked away.

We were on tension-strings till they left, leaning over the bar watching them walk away—they were dangerous and we knew it, and we knew that if we played this game long enough, eventually we were going to lose. "Hey, here's an idea," I said as they disappeared. "Why don't you just keep the repelling thing up all the time, huh? Then this kind of thing won't keep happening."

"Can't keep it up twenty-four hours," he told me. "It's like anything else, Leah, it take energy. It wears me out." He touched the side of his head again and sucked his breath in through his teeth, hand coming away with blood up to the second knuckle.

"Oh my gosh," I said, abruptly reminded that he was, actually, bleeding from the head. I went to the corner sink and grabbed a rag, pulling him over to wipe off the blood dripping lines down his neck and shoulder. "Do you have a concussion? Are you dizzy? Do you feel okay?"

I felt him flinch a little as I leaned against him, but he didn't move away, only grabbing onto my arms to steady me. "I'm okay. Seriously, I've had a lot worse." But he let me clean the blood from his eyes, watching me carefully like I was something he was trying not to spook. "So, um—is the no-touching rule still in effect?"

It suddenly occurred to me that we _were _touching. Whoops. But he was still bleeding, and I was still worried, so I pressed the cloth against the side of his head and looked away from him. "Kind of," I said, slightly flustered. "Maybe. I don't know."

"I'm not sure this has much to do with knowing stuff," he mused. "Maybe we should focus on, I don't know—feelings."

"Feelings?" Oh good, I got to be sarcastic instead of serious. My chest was feeling a little tight, breathing a little difficult—I needed to be out of this conversation. "_Feelings?_"

"Shut up," he smiled.

"Great idea, Dr. Phil, let's discuss our _feelings._"

He tightened his grip on my arms, trying to make me focus even though I did _not _want to, trying to make me look him in the eyes. "Yeah, okay, you're hilarious," he grinned. "But considering that we keep getting attacked by vampires and things—I'd just hate for us to run out of time on this."

"I don't know how I feel," I said, looking away.

"Let's find out," he said. And kissed me.

He hooked his hand his hands behind my neck and pulled me in, moving slow and silent like we were underwater but with a terrible urgency. I froze for a second against him—it was so long since I'd been kissed, but it was too late and my body already knew how. I _wanted _to kiss him. I pulled him closer and leaned into him, kissing him like I was starving for him, my hands going to his face and getting slick with blood but I couldn't think about it and I pulled him in anyway, his blood getting on my nails and the cuffs of my shirt. It felt like Christmas and like being on fire, and I wondered how we could keep kissing like this and not need to breathe. Stealing each other's air. He pulled me closer, suddenly very important for us to be touching more than they were, and I leaned into him so that my hair fell around him and I couldn't see past him but I didn't care.


	17. Chapter 17

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, so—warning. There's kind of an extreme cliffhanger at the end of this one, so just in advance: don't freak out. Anyway, enjoy, and I still love, love, love the feedback. Y'all are wonderful.

--

There were some mornings that I had to spend a lot of time convincing myself to get out of bed. It was just that my life had become such a flatline, post-Sam—I had no future and my past was universally ignored, I had no desires or ambitions or passions beyond a rotted old love that was eating me alive, from the inside out. What kind of life was that to wake up to? Sometimes I laid in bed for more than an hour, staring at the stucco ceiling, making lists in my head of good reasons to why I should even step outside my room.

Coffee helped.

When I woke up that was the first thing I smelled—the earth-scent of fresh-ground coffee, the low bubble of the pot. It shot electricity into me at once, energized me even without yet drinking it—I opened my eyes and sat up, stretching out on the floor behind the bar, buttoning the last two buttons of my shirt. I had a reason to get up today.

I stood up and found Spencer on the other side of the bar, pouring coffee into a chipped red mug—lighting up at the sight of me like sun on glass. "Morning, gorgeous," he said, handing me the coffee and leaning over to kiss me.

I let him—I even kissed him back. This felt good, this whole thing. I had almost forgotten what it was like to have your life like this—all straightened out under the bold heading of a single name. To feel skittery and electric, to have a reason to blush. I had helium in my veins. "Morning," I said, taking a long sip of coffee.

He wasn't drinking his own coffee—just staring over the brim of it at me, stopped halfway to drinking—smiling. "What?" I asked, pleased and embarrassed. I was being stared at.

"Nothing," he smiled back. "It's just that most people look terrible when they wake up."

My hands flew to my hair. "What—do I—"

"No, no," he assured me, grabbing my hands and pulling them back down. "Leah, you look like someone painted you."

My breath caught in my throat and I smiled up at him, every inch the teenage lover because that part of me had gotten so violently interrupted—I was just barely now catching up. But not even Sam had ever said anything like that to me before. I leaned on my elbow across the bar and put my other hand on the side of his face and kissed him.

A voice behind me, sounding shocked and wounded, devastated, said "_Leah?_" And I turned around and saw Ryan standing in the door.

And suddenly I learned a lot of new sympathy. Because this was exactly what it must have felt like for Sam, that day when I had first walked in on him and Emily. There was nothing I had ever felt that I could compare it to, it was like having a hole punched straight through my chest. My insides boxed out.

It was just that when you were with that person that you'd found, there was no one else but them. It sounded like a copout but it was true, there was just nothing else, the whole world tunneled in. So when you had to look in the faces of the other people involved and see what you had done to them, it was _such _a shock—the curtain suddenly pulled back from you and you're left hurriedly trying to button your shirt, trying not to meet anyone's eyes. I had never cared much for Ryan but when I looked at him I knew that I had hurt him, and I had never meant to do that. I had not thought this through.

For a few moments, Ryan looked a thousand times more vulnerable than I had ever seen him, standing there like a stabbed person who hasn't yet realized he's dead—and then abruptly, it all fell away to anger, and he came _at _us. Headed in the direction of both of us, but it became very clear who his target was when he barreled into Spencer and slammed him flat against the bartop, hands around his neck. "Ryan!" I yelled, but there was no answer, apparently he could only concentrate on killing one of us at a time, so I put my hands on him and _pushed _as hard as I could, toppling him off the bar and more importantly off of Spencer. "Ryan, _stop _it! You can't just kill us because you're upset!"

"Kill _you_?" he said in a small, surprised voice. "I'm not going to kill _you, _Leah. I love you." Oh God. Flashbacks were hitting me hard, black-and-white déjà vu of me standing in the doorway of my house watching Sam pull away from kissing Emily, not knowing whether to scream at him or get on my knees and beg. "But I am going to kill him," Ryan said firmly, and stood.

"No you're not," I said, pushing him back again. "No you are _not. _Ryan, think about this! He is the only reason your pack is still _alive_, you kill him and the Volturi will be on you in a _second._"

"Hmm," Ryan seemed to think about it for a moment, fuming like fireplace coals. "Yeah. It's worth it." And he lunged at Spencer again, hard enough that I just barely caught him, his hands clawing in front of Spencer's face and we were _so _lucky that this wasn't the kind of werewolf that could change on command.

I wrapped my arm around his neck in the kind of headlock I used to use on my little brother and grabbed the half-full coffeecup with my other hand, smashing it on the counter so that coffee sloshed everywhere and I came away with a triangle shard of ceramic, holding it to his neck. "Cut it out!" I scolded, waving Spencer frantically back as the other werewolves began to slip in, looking hungover and wired, wild-eyed. "Just _leave _it, okay? Pretend you never saw. It'll be easier that way. _You need him._" This was the sell. If I could convince him of this one point than everything else would follow, just as long as Spencer ended up _not _dead.

"Ryan?" Chase said uneasily, slinking up from the side in that strange movement they had, like they were constantly in the shadows and stalking. "Is everything okay?" A discrete way of saying, _um, Alpha, your fiancée seems to be trying cut your throat. Is this some sort of kinky new thing you're trying out, or should we be worried? _

"I'm sorry you had to find out like this, but really you're lucky you have me at all," I whispered viciously in his ear. "I never told you I loved you. I'm sorry, but I never promised you anything. I'm still here with you because I need to pretend I do love you, but I can leave. You hurt him and make no mistake, Ryan Glass, I am _gone._" One thing I did not have: scruples. One thing I was really good at: threats. When you're a social joke and a pariah, when you're the weakest member of your pack just because you're a girl and that much smaller—well, you learn how to make words cut people till they bleed.

I could feel his heart start to beat slower and slower, his breathing coming back to normal, as if he were consciously, willfully calming himself down. He cleared his throat. "Everything," he said coolly and clearly, "is fine."

My gamble had paid off. I had _thought _he was one of those guys—the kind who thinks if he can just keep the girl around long enough then eventually she'll be in love with him. The guy who thinks he just needs time. The guy who gambles all his rent money because he's sure than any minute now he'll hit the right number in roulette.

I pulled my arm from around his neck and tossed the pottery shard away, kissing him on the cheek. "That's my boy."

Spencer started to say something but I cut him off with a quick shake of my head, as if to say _don't you dare, don't screw this up now. _One thing was for sure—I was going to keep a very close eye on him for a little while. I trusted Ryan to believe me when I said I would leave, but I knew about anger and jealousy. Two years ago I had been him, right here in his shoes. There was a good chance that every once in awhile he would look at Spencer and be too angry to think rationally about any of this—and if I wasn't near Spencer when that happened, he was toast.

He got the hint and ducked behind the bar, pretending to rearrange or clean shelves, to do _something _back there where he was blocked from view. What a smart guy. "Just—be quiet and hide, for a little bit," I said quietly, leaning over the counter so I could see him, head bent over the bottles, dark hair still mussed from sleeping. I had the impulse to reach down and run my hands through his hair, which was obviously a very stupid idea. It was just that once you started doing that kind of thing with a person, it was hard to convince yourself to stop. An instantly-created physical comfort zone that was difficult to step out of.

"This is bad," he informed me. "This is really really bad."

"Yeah, you don't have to tell me."

"I am so dead."

"You are _not,_" I snapped. Unacceptable outcome. "No one's going to kill you. I won't let them."

"Oh, so I get to be Matt Dillon now?"

"You get to be Matt Dillon," I said, smiling a little at the memory of the conversation on the subway. The first time I noticed the dragon-green color of his eyes. "But for now—just stay down."

"Gotcha."

I stood back up to find Ryan chatting easily with his packmates, doing an Oscar-winning performance of I'm Just Fine, Thanks, Why Do You Ask? Why had I never been able to pull that kind of thing off? I was jealous of his easy posture, his crooked smile that stayed in place even though I _knew _his heart was in eighty-three pieces on the ground. He glanced sideways at me and it hit me even harder—that he was walking wounded, just trying to get through until he could find somewhere to collapse. _He really does love me, doesn't he? _Strange. Barring an actual imprint, how was it possible? How could you stake all your heartstrings on someone that you hardly knew like that?

I moved quietly into the circle, a little more careful to make myself one of them now that I definitely had to stay. A notch past something to stay for—now I had something to look out for. I saw a few werewolves dealing with wounds, tying bandages with their teeth—obviously slower in the healing department than we were. But—why were they injured in the first place? And, wait a second—"Where's Jacob?" I asked.

Their eyes went collectively dark with anger, lips curling back from teeth—even audible snarls from a few of them. Which was confusing but was still not an answer, and I was _really _starting to get worried. "Hey," I said sharply. "Someone answer me. _Where is Jacob?" _

"Jacob?" Ryan said coolly, precisely. "Jacob is dead."


	18. Chapter 18

"Jacob," Ryan said, "is dead."

I was predictable—push my buttons and I was always going to react the same way. Chances were, I was going to explode—supernovaing, sending shrapnel slicing into everyone that was near. I had learned to bounce pain off myself and magnify it, making sure that if I got hurt then you could bet everyone else was going to get hurt too.

"WHAT?" I yelled. Supernova.

Ryan got that concerned look like oh, I've said something wrong. "No, no," he explained. "I didn't mean he's _dead. _I just meant that he _will _be dead once we get our hands on him. I was using it as a transitive verb."

Okay, that was a relief, but I was not pacified. "Why? What is that supposed to mean?"

"Look around, Leah," he said, his voice frostbitten, absolutely razor-cold. Something had happened—there was something more to Ryan's day than walking in on my makeout. "Do you see David?"

"David? What?" I flicked my eyes around quickly, annoyed. "No, I don't see David, what the—"

"How about Ian? See him anywhere?"

"I don't even know who that is."

"Tall guy, black hair? Trust me, he's not here," Ryan said grimly. "Neither of them are here. Want to know why? Because they're dead."

The atmosphere pulled suddenly taut, painfully tense. Because no matter how many people loved me or how many of us flew to London, we were still two separate packs. When it came down to it we had our loyalties, and they were not negotiable.

"Do you mean dead like in the transitive sense?" Spencer asked.

"Spencer," I said. "Hush!" _Stop drawing attention to yourself, what, do you have a death wish?_

"No," Ryan said, not looking at him. Which actually was a good sign. "I mean dead in the sense that Jacob Black killed them."

My first thought was that he _wouldn't, _but wait—"Were they trying to kill humans?" I guessed shrewdly.

"Of course they were, Leah, they're werewolves," Ryan said, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

"Stop using that as excuse!" I yelled. "That's lame! And oh, P.S., you are not going to kill him, he's my _packmate_!"

"Leah, you cannot keep telling me not to kill people," Ryan said patiently. "It's going to be a problem in this relationship if you keep doing that."

_Relationship. _Gag me. I had to give myself a quick mental shake, remind myself that I still needed to be here. And so punching him in the eye was inadvisable. It was _hard _to control myself, I usually didn't have to. Whether it was inadvisable or not I was used to hitting hard and often, whenever I thought I wanted to. I was used to consequences but I wasn't used to caring.

So I ground my molars together at the back of my teeth and pressed together a tight smile that I hoped looked somewhat convincing. "Sure," I said. "We'll talk about that. But for right now can you please reconsider killing Jacob? Because I don't appreciate that."

"We'll see," he said, in the exact same tone my mother always uses when she means _absolutely not, _but doesn't want to come out and say it. _Great. _

"He's not hurt, is he?" I said, diving into my pocket for my cell phone. Sam was going to _kill _me. "Where is he?"

"_We _don't know," Soren said irritably. I made a mental note to tiptoe around Soren for the next couple of days—after all, his brother had just been killed, he looked absolutely destroyed and livid, sharp-edged. He was looking to tear something apart. "He ran off somewhere. If you do find us, though, let us know," he finished ominously.

"Yeah," I said nervously, trying to get my eyes away from his. "I'm probably not going to do that."

I dialed Jacob's number in, drumming my fingers against my leg as I waited for him to pick up. If the London wolves were dead and/or bleeding all over the place, what kind of shape could he possibly be in in? I had confidence in him—if there was one thing I could say for the kid, it was that he could fight—but there were so _many _of them, and overwhelming numbers were a disadvantage that Sam had always taught us to run from. _If there's that many of them, _I heard him saying in my head in his warm cocoa tenor, _you run. You don't be stupid and you don't be a hero, you _run. _You get out of there. _Jacob had never quite…caught onto that concept.

As the phone began to ring, I heard a sudden simultaneous noise start to buzz into the silence in the room. I spun and followed it, hunting the tinny electronic bars of Ozzy Osbourne's "Bark at the Moon" down to his jacket lying cast off on the staircase. I pulled his phone out of the jacket pocket and stared at it unhappily, watching it ring here, in my hand, where it was absolutely _not _useful at all.

"Fantastic," I spat, tossing the phone back down onto his jacket. "Just fabulous."

"Something wrong, Leah?" Ryan drawled.

This was too much. I couldn't handle it. A thousand problems all tangled up at once, or maybe just two or three big ones. I couldn't even tell anymore. I was never meant to be a leader or a problem-solver, I didn't have it in me. I was a yeller and a fighter, a girl who'd rather cut through the problems with a machete than sit and puzzle out the knots. I just could not handle this.

"You know what I'm going to do?" I said with transparent calm. "I am going to go get Sam. His flight is going to be here in less than an hour, and I am going to go pick him up. I will bring him back here, and he will solve this." That was the way things worked.

"Want me to come with you?" Ryan asked.

"No thanks," I said acidly, "but maybe I'd better bring Spencer. Just in case." Maybe everyone else would think I was saying _just in case of vampires, _but I was saying _just in case you kill him. _Ryan knew what I meant.

"I'm sorry, but you can't," Ryan said firmly. "It's overcast today. The vampires will be everywhere. We need him here, Leah." And he was saying _I don't want you to be alone with him. _We were having our own little conversation down there in the subtext where no one else could hear us.

I wanted to argue, but the thought of Sam was pulling me in the other direction—telling me to get out the door and go see him again, pathetic that it could send such a thrill up my spine even after all that had happened in the last few days. And besides, Ryan couldn't possibly be stupid enough to hurt him, right? …Right?

"Put him in his room till I get back," I said, stepping close to Ryan so that most of the others couldn't hear. "Can you do that for me? Just lock him up there, you don't have to even see him or anything."

"Anything you want, sweetheart," he said, pulling me to him and kissing me on the forehead. I tried to keep myself from making a face. I was almost successful.

"Leah," Spencer said quietly as I passed him, grabbing my sleeve. "Leah, don't leave me here."

"I'll be right back," I assured him, giving his hand a quick squeeze. "You'll be fine, Spencer, he's not going to hurt you."

"_Leah,_" he hissed as I pulled away, but I had to keep walking. He was making me feel very, very guilty and concerned. But I had guilt in other places, too, and I couldn't do everything at once. This would work. He would be fine. I would be right back.

--

I was tapping.

I was tapping on every surface available, tapping my feet on the ground and my fingers on the railing, nearly shaking with tension and anxiety. I felt like a girl waiting for a blind date, or a patient in a waiting room, waiting to hear whether or not I was going to die. I wanted to see him and I also wanted to turn and run as far and fast as I could, and it was tearing me straight down the middle. Possibly I was going to explode.

I looked down at the time on the front of my cell phone—eleven-fifteen, he was _late, _where _was _he—and I looked back up and saw him. Sam. Black hair tousled from airplane seats, eyes sleepy and serious, twisting his sweatshirt drawstring between his fingers. And after everything, after this morning after last night after _everything, _he still made it difficult for me to breathe just by being in the room.

"Sam!" I yelled to him, and his eyes found me, waving to me as he reached back for someone's hand—pulled someone carefully through the crowd. Blue eyes, blond hair that fell to her shoulders—sweet smile and scarred face, long long legs and eyelashes.

"Oh," I said. "Emily."


	19. Chapter 19

AUTHOR'S NOTE: All of you observant readers who told me that Emily is not a blonde—you're absolutely right. My bad. I lost track of the details there, for sure, so sorry about that. Also: feedback is my jet fuel. I appreciate it so much, guys, you have no idea :). Thank you!

--

Emily had been my closest cousin. She had lived halfway across the country but she'd still been one of the only ones I'd ever met, and the only girl in my father's side of the family. We first when I was ten years old. She thought that the Backstreet Boys were lame, and she liked to fly kites. We instantly became best friends.

By the time I was sixteen I was calling her about once a week, and we'd started making plans to be roommates in college. Then I told her that she should see some of the schools out there. Then she flew out to see them. Then I went to the grocery store and left her at the house and Sam came over to see me and opened the front door and saw her standing there setting the table for dinner, and she turned and looked at him. And he looked at her. And she did not ask who he was.

My point is, there was a time when just the sound of her voice would have made my whole day. Now even looking at her basically made me want to jump off a cliff. I felt sucker-punched, totally breathless—I had not been expecting to see her and that just made it that much worse. I swear, she was like a _ghost, _she just _haunted _me. The pretty blonde bane of my life.

"You brought _her?" _I yelled, in the highest octave of my harpy voice. Airport people turned and stared, probably wondering if I was getting my leg sawed off. _No! _I wanted to yell back at their stares. _You have no idea! It's much worse! _

"Of course I brought her," Sam said, moving in to try to hush me—annoyed, instantly protective of his One True Love. "It's our _honeymoon, _Leah. I shouldn't have even come as it is."

"It's fine, Sam," she assured, linking her arm through his. _So _understanding, so freakin' sweet. Hated her. "I know this is important. I don't mind."

"Yeah, well it's also dangerous," I said sharply, "and I really don't think that you and your snakeskin wedge sandals are up for it, _Emily._"

"Leah, calm down," Sam commanded, looking at me with those damn melt-me eyes. Honestly, it was straight up manipulation. It was just not really fair that he could suddenly get me feeling guilty, mean, reactionary. Well, I wasn't going to let him. He _had _his wife, he had his darling sweet Emily. He didn't get to have me too. "It's not a big deal, okay? Just ignore her.'  
"I _can't _ignore her," I said crossly. "She's really really tall."

"Leah," he said. Now this was a different voice—shades of the Alpha voice, the voice that said _you'd better shut up and listen. _"Stop. Tell me what happened."

I crossed my arms rebelliously over my chest, standing blocking them in the hallway as if I meant to stop them entering London at all. Certainly solve some of _my _problems. "What do you want to know?"

"First of all I'm a little curious why you're even here," he said. "Last I heard you were MIA. Jacob was really freaking out, he couldn't find you at all."

"You've been out of it awhile," I said, condescending-mean. "Things have changed."

He gave me a _look, _as if to say _I'm waiting. _Observation: eleven hours on a plane did not do a lot for people's moods. "I'm fine," I said, zipping through the Reader's Digest version before Sam bit my head straight off. "Jacob's in trouble. He got mad and killed two London werewolves. Now they want to kill him. The end."

Sam sucked his breath in and put his hand over his face, absorbing this new bad news—Emily stroked his arm comfortingly. I resisted the urge to make gagging noises. "_Why?_" Sam asked in a very put-upon voice. See, this is why I had never wanted the responsibility.

"They, um…eat people," I explained, trying to keep it quiet enough that I wouldn't attract airport security. I remembered Spencer making a scene about the vampires and smiled a little. A very little. This was serious. "He wasn't okay with it."

Sam nodded approvingly—yes, it was stupid and rash of Jacob to react like that, but the principle behind the rashness was good. "Is he all right? Where is he?"

God, he was cute when he was concerned. I could not help thinking it, even though it made me want to bash my head against the nearest wall. Love should really be more convenient, do you know that? It should. It should be more picky, it should be less arbitrary, it should be less humiliating, and less like laying on a bed of nails. Love should not make me hate myself, civil-war with myself. It just did not seem much like the thing that people wrote about in pop ballads.

"I don't know where he is," I said, slightly dazed. "I haven't seen him since last night. I've been staying with the London wolves, and he couldn't come back there."

"Well, why didn't you just shift?" he asked blankly.

"Um," I said.

"Leah, what is with you? We haven't heard you for more than a week! What is this sudden thing you have against shifting?" he asked, puzzled and exasperated.

"I just don't want to, okay?" I snapped, pulling slightly into myself. "As much as I miss the freaky sci-fi hive mind, I just—don't want to. I don't like it when you guys can hear me."

"Is it just the privacy issue?" he pressed. "We all have to deal with the same thing, Leah—"

"We do _not,_" I said savagely, burst into sudden emotion. "We do not. And you know it."

I'll admit it was strange to have to think of two men at once—Spencer back at the bar making me _so _worried, making me chew my nails off, and Sam right here in front of me making me think that maybe I wanted to die. I had not known that it could work like this—in fact I'd thought maybe, now that Spencer was around—but no. Love didn't seem to be a displacement principle.

He got very quiet, giving me a sharp narrowed look—his eyes X-ray scanning me head to feet. _But you can't get in my head, _I thought fiercely at him. _I am not letting you in my head. _"We'll talk about this later," he said. "I have a packmate to take care of."

Ouch. I deserved that. Really, I was being silly and stupid—but there was also a part of me that thought there might be something important about this. My head was so very clear these days, it really was. Did they need me? Did I need them? And what else was I if I wasn't a Quileute wolf? I was not happy, that was for sure. I did not know how to fix it. There was a lot to think through, here, and I hadn't exactly had much time for pondering. It would just have to get shoved back again in favor of death threats and Sam's big eyes.

"I'm going after him," Sam said, pointing at me. "I'll meet you back at the club. Take Emily, and for God's sake keep her safe."

"WHAT?" I yelled, but he was already leaving, striding through the crowd so fast that when I tried to follow him, the crowd had already closed around him and densified, boxing me out. "_SAM! I AM NOT BABYSITTING YOUR WIFE, DO YOU HEAR ME? I AM _NOT!"

He knew I was lying—he kept walking and disappeared in seconds, leaving me to wonder if Emily had stayed where I had left her. I turned back and fortunately, yes, she was still there. I hated her, but I didn't want her to die on my watch—it would be just another thing to make Sam hate me, and Lord knows I didn't need that.

She was standing there serenely with her hands clasped in front of her, just waiting—seeming entirely unbothered by the noise or the arguments or the furious glare I was giving her. I guess when you had Sam, nothing else could really upset you all. I know the feeling—scratch that, _knew. _Knew the feeling.

I didn't have time for moping. Sam was taking care of Jacob, good, perfect, that was what I had wanted him to do. Now I had only one worry (excluding Emily, _always _excluding Emily or I would go insane). Spencer. The one worry I could do something about.

--

It was the same thing as with Jacob. I had thought maybe the werewolves would be more interested in Emily because she was female, but they weren't. She just wasn't a wolf. She just wasn't me.

I had to admit, it was making me feel oddly triumphant. Definitely the first time in recorded history that I had been considered more attractive than Emily—because even with half her face in scars she was better than me, so much prettier. She was the kind of girl who had that personal internalized glow, the goodness and magnetism, and that would always win out against my caustic bitterness, every single time. Except now. Except when I was a genetic anomaly and a potential mate, and she was nothing. Nothing but another human, just a Happy Meal on legs. Well, good.

I left her downstairs as I went to check up on Spencer—sure, it would probably be awkward for her ("So…what do you do for a living?") but she wasn't in any actual danger. These guys only ate humans when they were in wolf form, and that wouldn't be for another, oh, two hours or so. And I didn't want to be around her, she kept trying to _talk _to me—she had never stopped trying to mend bridges, never seemed to understand that there was serious structural damage. There was never going to be a bridge built on that ground again.

She asked me about my wedding plans, for God's sake.

Which meant that she knew about my, um, "relationship" with Ryan—which meant that when we got to the club I had to walk over to him and give him a quick kiss, smile at him like we might be engaged. All very irritating, but I wasn't going to let Emily believe I was unhappy. That I was still thinking about Sam, still looking after him when he walked and thinking about his mouth when he spoke. If I had to fake it, I would fake it. It was a pride thing.

Seriously, though, I had my priorities, and Spencer was way near the top of the list. I left Emily at the bar so she couldn't see me hug-tackle him like I would probably end up doing, and I sprinted for the stairs.

He was lying on the floor of his room with legs crossed and his arms spread out to his side, staring at the ceiling. When I opened the door, his head turned to me and he started to sit up, slowly. "Hi. I've been waiting for you," he said. "Come here, I need some help."

"Are you okay?" I asked anxiously, looking quickly over him to make sure—then as he raised his arm from his left side— "Oh. Oh my God. Spencer, your wrist—"

"It's not a big deal," he said firmly. "I just can't set it by myself. All right, what I want you to do is take hold of my arm and hand, just over and under the break."

"Spencer, he broke your _wrist, _it _is _a big deal!" I yelled. "I can't believe this! I'm going to kill him!"

"Yeah, good idea," he said sharply. "Then he'll kill me. It's all _right, _honestly, it's just a small fracture. Are you going to help me, or what?"

"Spencer!"

"Leah!" he countered. "Even if you want to kill him, you're going to have to kill him later. I don't want my wrist to set wrong."

I put my hands on his arm, silently fuming but careful not to jostle it, not to touch the swollen knot of bruising at his wrist. "Okay," I said. "What do you need me to do?"

--

I came downstairs with one intention: to kill Ryan, or at least severely injure him. Was that a smart plan? No. Not really. But I was going to do it anyway, because he had hurt Spencer, after I _told _him not to hurt Spencer and directly after I decided that such a thing would make me mad. After I woke up this morning and Spencer handed me coffee in a red mug and looked at me like he hoped I'd always be standing there. I was used to defending humans but I was _not _used to caring. The caring was entirely new.

"Ryan!" I yelled as I stormed down the last few stairs, Spencer right behind me still trying to convince me this was a bad idea. "_Ryan! _Where are you, you are _dead!_"

I saw Ryan first—and for a few seconds, the plan was still to maim him. And then behind him there was Sam, relacing his shoes and pulling his shirt on—and the plan started changing a little. "Sam!" I yelled—I could change my objective but not my volume, I was still _angry_. "Did you find him? What's going on?"

"Oh," Spencer said quietly, coming to stand behind me. "So this is Sam."


	20. Chapter 20

AUTHOR'S NOTE: 100 reviews!! …Best day ever.

--

"Oh," Spencer said, watching me carefully from the side. He'd heard the name and now he met the person, and he wanted a _reaction. _He wanted to understand where Sam fit in my life, why I flinched every time I spoke his name. "So this is Sam."

Sam broke off speaking to Ryan and raised his eyebrows slightly at Spencer, taking in the arm sling and the chip on the shoulder, the strange tone with which his name was being spoken. "Sorry," he said, "have we met?"

"Your reputation precedes you," Spencer said, reaching his left hand out for an awkward handshake. His voice had gotten a strange, suspicious dark tone—too subtle for anyone else to probably pick up on it, but _I _noticed and I wondered why. What was it that had made him so abruptly prickly, so quietly hostile? "Spencer Weston."

"What are you even doing down here?" Ryan demanded.

"Hmm?" Spencer said vaguely. He was _watching _me—watching me watching Sam, watching the _way _I watched him and trying to see the invisible threads stretching between us. He was seeing more than I wanted him to, damn him, there was so much herethat I'd never wanted him to see. I'd never wanted him to meet Sam and shake his hand.

"What are you doing down here?" Ryan repeated icily. "Leave."

"Oh, you should be _glad_ he's here," I said acidly, stepping forward and getting in his face, glaring up at him. "He's the one trying to convince me not to _kill _you."

"Do you guys need a moment?" Sam asked innocently.

Emily came up behind him, she was always coming up behind him and linking her arm with him like this, _leaning _on him like this. I had never been a leaner. "Is everything okay?" she asked, forehead puckering with concern.

"It's fine, hon," he said, smoothing her hair. "Just a lover's spat."

"Shut up!" I pointed back at him. "This has nothing to do with you."

"Leah, if you don't mind, there are some things that I need to discuss with you," Sam said disapprovingly. "Seeing as you didn't come _with _me, I need to _tell _you what's going on."

"Sam! Seriously! You _know _why I didn't come with you."

"Here's something maybe you don't know," Sam said evenly. "You're not shifting. Guess what happens when you don't shift?"

"Gee, I don't know," I said, edged sarcasm. "Peace and self-actualization?"

"Think about the legends, Leah," he pressed through. He was used to my sarcasm, it just rolled off his back now. "When the werewolves were no longer needed, they stopped shifting, and they _stopped being werewolves. _They _lost _the ability altogether. They became human."

"Oh." He was right. I hadn't thought about that. "I didn't think about that."

"That's right," he said. "You _didn't _think about it. Leah, I don't know what's wrong with you, but I have _never _seen you act so selfish, so completely out of control. And you know what? That's saying a lot."

"Hey!" Spencer objected.

"What?" Sam asked, nonplussed.

"Just watch it, okay?" he said, bristlingly offended on my behalf. "Stop being mean to her."

"Who _are _you?" Sam asked. Poor guy, jumping right into the middle of our soap opera. I was surprised he wasn't tearing his hair out already.

"He's no one," Ryan said authoritatively. "Weston, _leave_."

"Ryan, you broke his _wrist,_" I reminded him. "I know you're mad, but you _promised _me you wouldn't touch him! Do you remember that? You _promised!_"

"Leah," Emily broke in, sounding very concerned. Emily was working on her degree in marriage counseling. "This is not a healthy way to deal with your issues. If this relationship is going to survive, you need to—"

"We don't have a relationship!" I exploded. "We don't! I'm not imprinted on him! We are not engaged!"

Complete silence.

Well, I guess that was that. I really thought I was going to be able to keep things up for longer. Stupid temper. I sucked my breath in and started wishing I could take it back.

"Oh," Emily said. "Well, I'm sorry to hear that."

Sam looked suddenly very uncomfortable—getting that look again where he remembered that he had essentially ruined my life, screwed me up so badly. That if I were to go in to a psychologist and lay down on their couch, he would be the thing that I talked about. He was looking straight past me and shuffling his feet, staring past me at the wall behind.

Beside me, Spencer slipped his left hand into mine.

"Yet," Ryan said serenely. Mr. Denial. "We don't have a relationship yet."

"We can deal with this later," Sam said, desperately trying to change the subject. He was just starting to get an idea of how things were here, and how much more complicated they could be. He was at the center of it and he hadn't even known. "I came here for a reason, Ryan."

"Oh good," Ryan said. "I assume you're here to apologize for the son of a bitch who killed my boys."

The London werewolves seemed to exist for only one reason: to lounge gracefully around the club, chatting easily, picking pieces of bone out of their teeth. Like a pride of lions on the savanna in the sun. Really that was all they were doing at any given moment, just lounging—until the first instant of trouble or disturbance. The instant _anything _abnormal happened, anything at all, they were there. The languid demeanor dropping in the blink of an eye, and suddenly you were surrounded by werewolves ready to tear you limb from limb.

It was happening now. The instant Ryan's voice pitched lower, getting dangerous, they were _there_—circling quietly around us. Backing up the threat in his voice.

"Maybe," Sam said neutrally, not looking at them. Sam was really not a person you could intimidate. He did move slightly in front of Emily, though, shielding her with his shoulders. "One way or another, I think we need to work this out. We're the only creatures of our kind in world, and we already have vampires out for our blood. It doesn't make any sense for us to get into some kind of pointless feud."

"I could agree," Ryan said silkily. "What I'm not clear on is what you plan to do about it."

"I think we're both sensible people," Sam said steadily. I wished that one of them would just scream already, just explode—it was hard to guess who was going to out-calm who. Ryan's calm was so creepy though, so chilly, like a stalker or a killer from a slasher movie. Sam was just so—steady, so comforting. He spread calm out from himself like the sun. "We all just need to sit down and talk about this, I'm sure we can work it out." Typical Sam. He was cute when he was unrealistically optimistic.

"Still listening," Ryan said skeptically, folding his arms. "How do you intend to make this little pow-wow happen?"

"Well," Sam said carefully. "Jacob—is right outside."

And he thought _I_ was stupid.

Technically, he probably didn't quite know what he was up against. He'd only been here for half a day, hadn't had the chance to see the way they looked sometimes, like they were seconds away from going for your throat. These were not the werewolves he was used to, they were _wild, _feral, absolutely inhuman. I wished I could have known what he was doing, maybe I could have hand-signaled him, smoke-signaled him—tackled him to stop him from telling them that the guy who had decimated their pack was less than twenty feet away.

When I heard him say it, my sights had instantly locked on Ryan, waiting for him to do something homicidal. He was not the first one to move. I was looking right and I saw something blur past me on the left—I turned and saw Soren blazing out the door.

"Oh my God!' I yelled. "_Ryan! _Ryan, stop him!"

"Are you kidding?" Ryan said, shoving me away on his way to the door. "Jacob Black is _dead._"

"For real this time?" I yelled hysterically after him. "_You're not just being transitive, are you?_"

He didn't answer.


	21. Chapter 21

It went like this: first Soren went after Jacob outside, then Ryan followed. And of course where their Alpha went, the pack followed, streaming out the door like hyenas on attack. We were a little slower—Sam reacted first, exploding into wolf form instantly with teeth coming out his mouth, claws out his hands, and he went straight into the middle of them, knocking them left and right, they looked so _flimsy _next to him, so thinly human. I dove in after him in the gap that he left, staying human for now. Maybe forever but it was _not _the time to think about it, I had some heads to crack.

This was one of the main good things about being a werewolf: regular outlets for the unhealthy buildup of violence inside of you, in the form of slapping people around who are threatening the peace and the general human population. That's right: you get to beat people up _and _write if off as a heroic public service. Best of both worlds. I grabbed the nearest werewolf by the arm and threw him outside, like a barfighter looking for more space.

But of course when your full-time job is the violent defense of the human race, nothing is ever that simple—I threw him into a group of his packmates, knocking them all sprawling like a bowling strike, scattering to the ground. I swept in after them, diving in like the predator I was and was making myself.

I broke holes in the London evening mist that covered over everything, the same grey stone color as the buildings but thicker, denser, seeming like the kind of thing that might kill you if you swallowed it. But it was doing us a favor, really, hiding us—most of us were still human, the sun hadn't yet gone down, but there were two spike-furred, oversized wolves weaving in and out of the mist, snapping their teeth after lean gray humans. We were out here in the parking lot of an outskirts London club trying to kill each other, and the mist covered us and let us do it.

Not all the London wolves were here at this instant so that was good but I kept hearing Sam's voice in my head all the same. _Overwhelming numbers, _I thought as I looked over at him circling back to back with wolf-Jacob, slamming his shoulder into the nearest man. _Run away from overwhelming numbers. _Very smart advice. Too bad we were not smart people.

I knew I should shift. The thing was, there was even more weight on the decision now that I knew what I knew. I had a choice here, and I wanted time to make it—maybe there was a chance to be something other than what I was, there was a _chance, _and I was not going to be bullied into it, I was not going to be rushed. It was okay, though, I could still be effective, I could meet them half-human to half-human and still win.

In the months between when I lost Sam and when I first shifted I had gotten in a lot of fights. Everyone who didn't know the truth about the Great Breakup thought exactly what I had thought—that this terrible thing must have happened to me for a reason, that I must have done something wrong. I heard myself called a slut, a bitch, a lesbian, a stalker—and I punched the people who called me those things, every single one. I had a lot of practice.

Not to brag or anything, but chick fights? Chick fights are so much more intense. Boys had no idea.

If I wasn't going to shift, I needed an advantage, though, so I slapped the first person who jumped at me, openhanded—Chick Fight 101—and kicked him in the knee so that I had space to jump back and thrust my hand though the broken window, yelling, "Spencer!" Like a pro wrestler yelling for a chair.

"Yeah?" he answered, staying safely back from the fight, yelling to me from a distance as I punched another guy in the chest.

"Coat rack!" I yelled. He was a good corner man—he snatched it up instantly and passed it through the window, the clunky black coat rack with hanger claws at the end. "Thanks!" I said. "Now go away! Get Emily and hide!"

I swung the coat rack like a baseball bat and broke it on the legs of the closest person, leaving me with the claw end which I flipped over in my hand, slashing out at anyone who came near, bruising breaking drawing blood. No one came close to me, never got within two feet. Except when Ryan exploded in from the side and football-tackled me so that I rolled over the window ledge into the club, breaking the remaining jagged glass with my back and shoulders.

I jerked him around midair and landed on top of him, my knees on his chest, kept my grip on the half-coat-rack and pulled it back to hit him as I'd been pretty much wanting to since the moment we'd met. A hand wrapped around it on the downswing and yanked it out of my hand, and I turned back to see Chase standing over me, looking young and blond and dangerous.

"Sorry," he said. And punched me.

I somersaulted backwards off Ryan and scrambled to my feet, running back to the first defensible place I could see, the flat marble surface of the bar. I climbed up on it and swung my legs over, starting to get to my feet so that I could have the high ground, and then suddenly a hand grabbed me and dragged me down and across the bar, tumbling me over to the other side. I turned and saw Spencer with his hand fisted in my sweater, and suddenly the metal legs of a barstool came slamming down where my body had been with enough force to crack the marble, spiderweb it out for six inches. Right where my shoulders and ribs had been, and Chase picking the stool up to swing it at me again.

"Thanks," I said to Spencer, then grabbed the metal crossbar of the stool as it came down and wrenched it around in Chase's hands, flipping him sideways so he landed on the corner edge of the bar. Chances were he'd be down for a few counts.

But in the instant I'd turned my attention away Ryan had _gotten _there, vaulting over the bar to collide with Spencer and drive him back into the back counter hard enough to splinter the wood and make him gasp with pain, crumpling down the back of the bar. I spun and lashed out with my arm, trying to catch Ryan and get him away with Spencer, but I was too far from them. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw Emily smash a bottle over a Chase's head—I thought she could handle him, he was barely conscious, so I turned and went for Ryan, but he had already grabbed Spencer by the hair and slammed his head back into the marble bar surface, knockout with a bloody line running across his forehead and his eyes going abruptly blank, all the tension going instantly out of his body and he collapsed on the floor at Ryan's feet.

Well, at least now I didn't have to worry about him—other than worrying that he was hurt or dead or brain damaged, that he had fallen wrong or landed wrong on his wrist, that I wouldn't be able to get to him in time. But at least I didn't have to worry about him being in the middle as I slammed into Ryan and sent us both backwards into a table and chairs, scattering them beneath us.

I rolled away from him and the moonlight struck me in the eyes, catching me up short for a minute because I knew exactly what it meant. I turned back to Ryan and he was already half-wolf, fur sprouting up along his spine and claws unsheathing from his paws.

"Damn it!" I yelled.

But before we could get really get into it, him with the advantage this time, the situation flipped again, straight on his head. The club had been relatively empty the last time I looked, most of the fighting was taking place outside where there was more room and more things to throw at people. Suddenly, though, these people were all pouring into the club, half of them werewolves and half still changing, two bigger darker wolves in the middle of them but not doing much attacking, just mostly running for now. What could they _possibly _be running from? They were _werewolves. _

I got my answer as the first lean, white-skinned beauty jumped through the broken window and tore into a half-shifted wolf—instantly surrounded by other wolves and forced back out the window in seconds, breaking through the windowsill, but now I knew what it was and why they were running. What, did these vampires just camp out around the club all day, waiting for something to happen? They really must be bored.

"Ryan!" I yelled as he crouched to leap at me, pointing back behind him to where the club was pulsing at the edges with vampires fighting to get in, suddenly released by Spencer lying unconscious on the floor by the bar. "Hey, seriously! _Look!_"

He spun at the last moment, wrenching his body around to look because of the way I was yelling and the tone in my voice, and he _saw _what I was talking about it. I didn't know how much consciousness they still had when they turned to wolves, but there must have still been enough in there to look at vampires climbing through the windows and know that this was really, really not good.

He took off toward the vampires and I ran the other direction, because that was a _lot _of vampires, and I knew the only thing that could fix this was Spencer. I was supposed to have been _watching _him and now I needed him to wake up, to start saving people he hated again so that we wouldn't die, either.

There was blood down his forehead and bruises forming under his eyes but when I picked Spencer up I could feel his pulse in his arm and neck. _Thank God. _I wasn't sure if he was going to be getting up anytime soon, though, he could be out for _hours, _he could be concussed. As I leaned over him trying to think of how to get him awake, I heard another voice right behind me at the bar and immediately recognizable. Sam.

I turned to see what he was doing here, why he had shifted back to human, and saw him sitting behind the bar with someone cradled in his lap—blond hair spilling over his arm streaked red with blood. "Emily," I heard him say, not loudly. Holding her with one hand supporting her neck like a father with a child. Her eyes were open and staring past him, staring dead at the ceiling. Not seeing. "Emily."


	22. Chapter 22

Usually, you don't get what you wish for. In fact, usually the only wishes that came true were the ones you were sort of ashamed of—the ones that made you gasp and feel sick when they did come true because you'd never _really _meant it. You'd thought it but you hadn't meant it, felt as if you had somehow cursed it so it came true because you know what? You really do need to be careful what you wish for.

I'll admit, I'd had the thoughts. I'd sat in Physics class and daydreamed about running Emily Young over with a monster truck. I had done it. But when I looked up and saw Emily in Sam's arms with blood in her hair, I lost all my breath.

"Sam!" I said, laying Spencer carefully back down on the ground, I was concerned about him but he wasn't dead, and damn it someone else was. I tried not to move far from him but I had to get to Sam—I could see him breaking apart from here, I could see him crumpling, he was in _pain _with pieces cut out of him. I had to get to him. "Sam!"

I scrambled up next to him, trying to get his eyes, trying to make them see something other than her, he was going into shock and he had to lose that glassiness _now. _This was life-changing territory, and I couldn't let him fall through the cracks—I knew how it felt to try to hang onto your sanity in that moment of shock, the cold in your hands and feet and the savage blankness, the predatory carnivorous grayness trying to chew you apart. Not him. Not my Sam.

"What happened?" I asked, trying to get him to answer, to focus on something—checking Emily's pulse and breathing but I hardly needed to. The whole side of her face was covered with blood, one side scars and one side bright slick red, bleeding clawmarks down the front of her staining her sundress so bright red. She was only human, and she should not have been here. "Sam, look at me! Tell me what happened!"

"I don't know, I just found her." The words burst out of him in a jumble, slurred together like he was drunk, half-hysterical. "I just found her here like this, I don't know what—I don't know who did this, I need her to—Leah, _fix it._"

I was taken aback at the sudden force in his voice, and he looked up at me with his eyes straight on me—and there was something different and familiar in his eyes when he looked, but I couldn't think about it right now because also in his eyes was also desperation and danger, and it needed to be cut off before it could hurt him.

"Sam, she's dead," I said firmly, taking his wrists and pulling his hands away from Emily. Harsh, and it stung to say it, but he had to get over it fast. Normally there would be time for him to sit here and grieve, hours and years for him to deal with Emily's death, but just now the world was going to hell all around us and if we did not _move _we were going to get burned alive. Even as I kneeled her next to him a vampire came crashing over the bar into the alcohol shelves, raining mixed whiskey and gin on our heads. "Sam, pull it _together!_"

The vampire hit the ground next to us and launched himself in our direction, snarling—two seconds before he hit I saw the straight nose and insane hair and realized it was Corin—someone I would only be too happy to turn towards and rock backward and kick in the chest with both feet. He took my kick hard and went sprawling almost on top of Spencer—pushed himself off the limp body and realized almost instantly who it was.

"Great!" I yelled, "Fantastic!" and got over there as quickly as I could before Corin could do something I didn't want him to, trying to stay evenly spaced between my two damaged boys so I could protect them while they came back to themselves.

Corin saw me coming and jumped when I did, slamming me hard against the shelves, but as much as I wanted to rip him to shreds the important thing was just to get him _away, _I had people to take care of. So I grabbed him and dragged him up, pulling him with me as I rolled over the top of the bar and shoving him over onto a stool on the other side, then braced my feet on the crossbar and shoved the stool with my feet, sending him as far away as possible. I just needed him _gone, _and that was pretty much taken care of as he collided with Jacob in the middle of the room, and Jacob turned and snapped at him, nearly taking his head off. Instant distraction. I gave him a _thanks, man _wave and turned back to Sam and Spencer.

I never got there—mid-turn I felt five long fingers wrap around my arm and jerk me backwards off the bar, jerking me around face to sexy-long-lashed-Heidi face. "Smooth," she said. "Really smooth."

"Thanks," I said, and elbowed her in the throat.

Less effective than it would have been with a human, since she technically didn't need to breathe, but it still let her know that I was serious. She screamed out of anger and pain and backhanded me, but I grabbed a handful of her hair and didn't back off. Now _this _was a chick fight. She tried to push me away but I had a very good grip, and a chunk of her pretty blonde hair came off in my fist as we flew apart.

_All right_, I thought, _that is _it, breathing hard watching her snatch up the nearest broken bottleneck and come back at me. I spread my hands out to my side, absolutely ready for her, but as she threw herself in my direction someone attacked me from behind, of _course, _of course they would grab my arms and pin then behind me the instant I was distracted. _Overwhelming numbers! _my head was screaming. Also: _damn it damn it damn it, I am _dead!

But just as Heidi slashed out at my throat with the bottle, someone jerked me out of the other vampire's grip, wrapping his arms around me getting blood all over my cheek as he pressed me to him. Spencer. And suddenly both vampires were thrown back, pushed away quicker and stronger than I'd ever seen, absolutely tossed away from us and still being pushed, all of the vampires in the room being pushed back in a wave.

The werewolves, _stupid _werewolves, actually followed them right out of the club—whether to keep fighting them or to fill their own stomachs I wasn't sure, but one thing was for sure, they were happy to take it outside.

And I was happy to let him. When I let go of Spencer he nearly collapsed, stumbling backward and catching himself on the bar edge.

"Are you okay?" I grabbed his shoulders to steady him, tucking his injured arm back into the sling.

"Oh yeah," he mumbled, looking as if he might pass out again any second. "I'm awesome."

"You sort of saved my life, you know," I informed him.

"If you don't mind," he said, closing his eyes and putting his hand on his forehead, "I think I'll skip the medal ceremony."

"Hey, hey," I warned him. "Stay with me. You pass out again, and I am dead."

"I _know _that," he said crossly, looking up at me. "Why do you think I dragged myself all the way over here to save you?"

Just a throwaway remark, but with the added bright blazing green of his eyes it had me feeling abruptly lightheaded—reading things into the question that I knew I shouldn't. "I don't know," I said quietly. "Why did you?"

He looked at me for a few moments, joining me in adding a little too much significance to the moment—both of us standing here in a trashed werewolf bar, bleeding from a dozen wounds between us and for some stupid reason we were having a moment. "You really don't know?" he asked.

Sam stood up at the bar behind us with Emily in his arms—attracting our attention at once with her bright blond hair as he set her carefully onto the countertop. Arranging her limbs straight as he laid her down, smoothing her hair. We went quiet—our moment suddenly overshadowed by his overwhelming, impersonally huge tragedy. I stopped reaching for Spencer and turned to him.

"Sam," I said, walking towards him. "Sam, come away from her. Come here, Sam." We needed to get the body out of here as soon as possible—it wasn't healthy for him to be sitting here staring at her. But really, what were we going to do, call up the morgue and ask them could they please come over and pick up the mauled corpse of a werewolf victim? I would have to ask Ryan what they usually did with their bodies.

Sam still wasn't looking at me—his hand still resting on the back of her head. There was blood from her wounds starting to drip onto the marbletop, from her side and her head. He couldn't stop looking at her, and he was very quiet.

"Sam," Spencer said sharply. He was a guy who knew something about loss. "Eyes. Here." Sam looked up at the challenge in Spencer's voice, instincts unable to ignore male threat, but they slid quickly off him and onto me.

Why did he keep _looking _at me like that? Like I was something that he suddenly recognized, like I was something new and glittering, something interesting. I could feel his gaze tracing every edge of me.

Well, as long as I had his attention—"Come here," I repeated.

He came. He didn't take his eyes off mine as he walked around the bar, gaze on my gaze like it was drawing him in. Reeling him magnetically. He got within two steps of me—strangely close, within touching distance—and then he stopped.

I felt abruptly uncomfortable; scrutinized. He hadn't looked at me straight in the eyes since—God, I don't know when. Years. "What?" I asked self-consciously, tucking a piece of loose hair behind my ear.

He reached out and slid an arm around my waist, pulled me in, and kissed me.


	23. Chapter 23

Here is a list of the three most surprising things that have ever happened in my life: one—walking in on Sam and Emily. Two—finding out I was a werewolf. Three—Sam kissing me in Lycaon after the fight.

I didn't pull away. How could I? This was another wish that I'd never really expected to come true, and just like the other one it didn't exactly happen in the way that I'd thought. I hadn't ever expected him to pull me to him again and kiss me in exactly the way that he used to. My body didn't quite know what to do—didn't remember how to react. My hands flew out to my sides, not touching him anywhere but my mouth—afraid to touch him at all, like he was a soap bubble I though might disappear.

_I _wasn't going to stop him, but if I kissed him much longer my head was going to explode. So it was probably a good thing when Spencer grabbed Sam by the shoulder and dragged him away. "What the _hell _do you think you're doing?" he demanded, looking entirely ready to punch Sam out with one arm and a concussion.

"I'm kissing her," Sam explained, keeping his arm wrapped around my waist.

"Yes, I can _see _that!" Spencer yelled. "_Why_?"

"Because I love her."

Okay, that was even too much for me. "What?" I gasped, pushing him away. "What do you mean? What do you mean you _love_ me?" Hearing the word was like a sucker punch, I wanted to crumple to the ground and put my arms over my head and catch my breath.

He grabbed my hands again, turning to me and blocking Spencer out with his shoulders, looking straight at me in a way that I still wasn't used to. "Leah, I know this is hard for you to understand. I'm still trying to deal with this myself, but let me explain."

"Okay," I said faintly. Damn him and his stupid looking-me-in-the-eyes thing. Paying attention to me for the first time in two years.

"Leah," he said seriously. "The imprint is broken."

"What—" I gaped. "Sam, what are you talking about? What about Emily?"

"I don't know, it's the only thing I can think of," he said, running a hand through his hair, looking very frazzled and very sincere. "It's the only thing that explains what's happening here. The instant I saw Emily, Leah, it was just like you didn't exist. I used to love you, you know I did, but the imprint just completely erased that, it was _gone _and it was not my fault. Now," he said awkwardly, "its, um. It's back."

"It's _back?"_

"I don't know," he said helplessly. "I love you, Leah. With Emily gone, it's just all I can think about. I—guess I used to love you a lot. I had forgotten."

"No," Spencer was saying behind me, shaking his head. "No, no, no, no, no."

"Hey," Sam snapped. Spencer was ruining his moment. "I don't understand what you have to do with this."

"I don't know, Leah," he said, green eyes spotlighting me. "What do I have to with this? Why don't you tell me what I have to do with this?"

"Spencer, don't!" I said putting my hands on my temples. I didn't want to see him looking like that—I didn't want to see him look like that and know it was my fault. Oh God, I was a hypocrite—but this was what I had been wanting for years. This was all that I had been thinking about—this was the thing I thought of every instant I let my mind wander, the instant default. That I still loved him. That he was the one and that I would always freakin' love him and that there was maybe the tiniest possibility that someday he would come to his senses and love me back. How could Spencer ask me to give that up? I remembered dancing with him in the parking lot but how could he ask that of me? "Just don't do this, okay?"

"Don't do what?" he asked, waving his good hand. "Fight for you? Leah, this is ridiculous. You know this is ridiculous. Who is this guy, that he can show up and just say he's in love with you?"

Spencer was so wonderful. He was everything good for me, he was perfect. But with Sam looking at me and telling me he loved me, there was just no one else in the room. "Spencer," I pleaded. "Please. There's a lot of history here that you don't understand." _Please don't hate me. Please please don't hate me. _

"Leah, are you—_with _this guy?" Sam wanted to know. I guess it had been hard to tell, what with the fake engagement and all. "What is going on?"

"No, I was—I don't know." Flustered! Very flustered and sort of devastated! How was it that I had gone from no guys and no prospects to _three _all pledging their love to me, asking me to _pick_! If Spencer had never existed this would have been the best moment of my life. Instead it was just—painful. Open-heart surgery sans anesthetic. I did _not _want to have to decide. "I don't know!"

"Leah," Sam said, coming up behind me, running a hand through my hair. "I love you." Slightly confused but sincere. "Isn't this what you've always wanted?"

"I don't know if I love you," Spencer said honestly. I felt like they were lawyers pleading their case, prosecution and defense, closing statements. They should not be fighting over me. It was not natural. I felt as if maybe I should direct them on their way to something better, because how could I _possibly _be worth this? If I was worth it then why had they ignored me for years? "But whatever we've got, Leah, it's got to be better than you and him. Might I remind you that just hours ago he was yelling at you and calling you selfish."

"I've already explained that," Sam growled. "It was like _amnesia, _Leah, I never would have done it if I'd had a choice."

"But you still did it," I reminded him. Having him so close was intoxication, drugs and alcohol, extreme emotional accelerants far past the legal limit. I was going to keep my head clear if it killed me.

"Yes," he admitted, "and I apologize. I apologize for forgetting how much I love you."

Not _fair, _not fair not fair. This was not working. "Leah," Spencer said, looking tired and fed up. Not the kind of guy to wait around for a girl, but oh, the bright hot static between us when we looked or touched or accidentally brushed each other's skin as we walked past. He was annoyed but he was not going to let this go, for the same reasons I couldn't. These just weren't things that came around very often. He was not going to let me go, but he was _not _going to make this easy. "You have to make a choice. You know that, right? Ten more seconds of this and we're all going to kill each other."

There was an agony in it—there was a breaking capillary devastation in it, an indecision. I was ankle-chained to two different people who wanted to go two different directions, and it was just not going to work without something breaking or bleeding. I had been right the first time. Love _sucked. _

_No, _I decided, cementing it suddenly in my mind. _Absolutely not._ I had never let people bully me, I'd never let them push me around—why should I start now? In my current emotional state I could barely be trusted to know up from down, I was _not _going to make this decision. There was a _reason _they didn't let drunk people behind the wheel of a car.

"Spencer," I said calmly, not looking at either of them. "Sam. I understand how hard this is for you. Considering the nature of the decision, though, you are going to have to give me a little time."

"Leah—" Sam started.

"Sam," I interrupted. "Seriously. Twenty-four hours. It will kill none of us. I want to make sure I am doing the right thing."

Spencer stepped in and kissed me on the forehead, pulling me in quickly and lightly and then stepping away. "I can respect that," he said. "Just promise me you'll think about it clearly—in the present, all right? Think about both of us _in the present_. Make a Venn diagram if you need to."

"Leah, you can't—" Sam protested.

"Yes, Sam," I said firmly. "I can. Deal with your dead girlfriend."

I turned away before he could stop me, heading for the stairs. Keeping control of myself so that I didn't look back at them as I walked up the staircase, repeating to myself over and over that I was not going to look, not going to look. But when I hit the hallway outside my room I knew that this was not where I wanted to be, either. I wanted to go _somewhere_, but not my room. Not my clean, sterile, hotel room with its clean white linen and wide white walls, no _thank _you. So I kept climbing—a staircase I hadn't even been up before, but hey, time to be adventurous. I climbed up the stairs until they ended, running me headfirst into a hatch in the ceiling. I turned the knob and opened it, and climbed out onto the roof.

London looked smoky monochrome, stone gray turned silver by the moonlight. The skyline all ridged and boxy, buildings all pressed up against each other and even more compressed from my straight-on view. Looking cutout. Looking construction-paper silhouetted. Rooftops and walkways and cast-silver gardens. I looked at it and I did not know if I would ever be able to leave here again.

I looked down closer and saw blood in the parking lot, splattered on the windows of the few disused cars. Vampires and werewolves churning together on the asphalt, teeth locked into each other, grind-milling in circles like the insides of a clock. I wondered if anyone would look out the window and see them. But they had been here so long. They were going to stay. Nobody would look out their window tonight. I wondered with what kind of blinders the human race ignored their monsters, and how much of it was conscious.

I sat on the roof of the club, wet from the mist, and tried to remember what it felt like to be human.


	24. Chapter 24

Thank God the sun came out in the morning.

It wasn't something you could take for granted in London—the sky was always gunmetal overcast, precipitation to be expected in buckets. On any given day it was a good bet to carry an umbrella, because chances were you would need it.

I didn't care. I _loved _the rain. Used to be that I only liked the warm summer kind, the rainstorms that you could sit outside and get pleasantly soaked by like a giant outdoor showerhead. The cold rains—not so much. But ever since I'd become a werewolf, it really didn't make a difference. My body temperature was so high anyway that, warm rain, cold rain, no difference. Bring it on. Wash me clean.

No rain today, though—the sun peeked out sickly yellow-gray from behind the clouds, but it was sun all the same. Which meant that at the first crack of the horizons, the vampires were _gone. _Melting suddenly away before the sun could spotlight them—humans could write off a fight as a wild party when it was the middle of the night, but at seven o'clock in the morning everyone was going to be looking. The fog melted away in the sunlight, and when the last bit of it was gone the vampires were, too. I could see the werewolves shudder-shifting into human as the moon paled out above them. One black wolf still in the middle of them; the moon was nothing to us.

I had gotten a few hours of sleep—a shingled roof wasn't exactly a feather mattress, but I'd slept worse places. The hardest part had actually been forcing myself to stop watching the fight below me. Spencer and Sam were safe inside, but Jacob was still down there, of course—fortunately people had been somewhat distracted from wanting to kill him by the whole vampire thing, but frankly I was glad to see him still walking.

When I woke up, the morning at first seemed beautiful—things seemed wonderful. Sunny. Brisk perfect September air rushing straight to my lungs, sunlight sheening over my skin, gold on gold. The fighting below me was the first hint, of course, that everything wasn't as great as it first seemed, but then that was just life, wasn't it? Thinking things are good, in your naiveté, and then gradually finding out that you are wrong. And looking down on monsters trying to tear each other apart was nothing compared to the moment that I realized I had only sixteen hours left to make a very bad and important decision.

I pivoted over onto the other side, kicking the hatch open—and then just sat there for a minute, my legs dangling down into the stairwell. In some ways I wanted to not go down there at all, to _never _go down there. Maybe to jump off the roof and just run away. It wouldn't be hard, I had done it before. But there were conflicting thoughts jumping up in an instant, visceral snapshots—Spencer looking up at me and telling me I looked like art. Sam's hands on my waist as he kissed me. Of course I was going down there. Probably.

As I sat there indecisive, I suddenly felt a hand wrap around my calf, and my instinct was to kick out and take the person's head off. Fortunately, I looked down first and saw Spencer's eyes looking out of the stairwell shadow—and I did not kick his head off. "Oh," I said awkwardly. "Um. Morning."

"There you are," he said, pulling himself one-armed up onto the roof next to me. "Good to know you're not dead."

"Don't count your chickens." My weak attempt at humor. I wished I was better at it, it was a good defense mechanism.

"Oh, honey, I would never call you a chicken. Really more like wolf in the chicken pen, if anything," he smiled. See, this was a good example of the humor thing—he was lightening the mood at once, driving me away from the heavy questions.

"Thanks," I said wryly. It probably wasn't a good idea for me to be alone with him, especially if he kept being charming and witty and sweet. No fair swaying the judges. "Well, thanks, I'm fine. I was just about to go downstairs."

"Stay," he said, catching my hand as I started to move. "London is so pretty first thing in the morning."

"I saw it," I said stiffly. Panicking slightly with his hand on mine.

"No," he said. Not even looking at me—looking out at the city with a kind of wholesome immaculate affection. "You're going to miss the best part. Once the sun gets over the skyline and starts warming up the stone—God, Leah, it's just—castles and cottages."

"Do you love it?" I asked him before I could stop myself. It was just that he looked at the city the way I looked at it—like it was a thing he was in love with.

"Oh yes," he said unashamedly. "I love it."

"But you're not from here," I pointed out. "You don't have an accent."

"I was at school at Johns Hopkins in Maryland," he said. "It's where I grew up. That's where they took me from."

"Then how could you possibly love London?" I wanted to know. "You're stuck here, Spencer, you do know that. It's your prison."

"Doesn't matter," he told me. "When you find something beautiful, you love it."

He was looking at me. His knees were turned toward me, and there were bruises under his eyes from last night, blood-circled black eyes. Still very green. Almost impossibly green, in a way that made you feel like if you looked at them long enough or in exactly the right way, there might be something underneath. Like a Magic Eye picture made out of reflective foil. I wanted to try to keep looking, which was—unusual. Perhaps the first time I hadn't felt scorched by his gaze and needing to look away. I was getting used to this.

I opened my mouth to say something, wasn't quite sure exactly what, but I never found out. I heard footsteps on the stairs, and then Sam's head popped up over the roof, his hands gripping onto the edges. "Hey, we've been trying to find you," he said, giving Spencer an unfriendly look. "Looks like one of us did. Thanks for the heads-up, man."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Spencer deadpanned. "I thought we were playing sardines."

Sam gave him another glare but didn't answer, and held a hand out to help me down. "We should probably get down there," he informed me. "Things are getting crazy."

Things were, indeed, getting crazy.

"That's _four,_" Ryan was yelling across the room at Jacob, looking seconds away from jumping at him. Even without his wolf teeth I suspected he might find a way to tear Jacob's throat out. He was _mad, _and that meant things were very serious indeed. Ryan's mood was a good barometer to tell how things were going. Good to pretty good—calm. Bad—homicidally angry. "You've killed _four _of my boys, Jacob Black! There were vampires on every side of you, why would you kill _them_?"

"Look, an enemy is an enemy!" Jacob retorted, pulling his shirt on, seeming significantly less upset. Jacob had a very well-calibrated moral compass, and as a result, Jacob slept very well at night. He knew which things were right and which things were wrong, and he did the things that were right. Jacob had no patience for gray areas and guilt trips. "And for the record? They were trying to kill me first." I looked around but didn't seem Soren. Sad, but probably a good thing. Better for the local peace—assuming, of course, that we could get _this _resolved.

"We are the same thing!" Ryan threw his arms in the air. "We are not your _enemy!_"

"Anything who kills humans is my enemy," Jacob said grimly. Technically true.

"What do you want? _I _am the Alpha, you do _not _tell my pack what to do. You do not decide what goes on in my pack!"

"Well, maybe you _shouldn't _be the Alpha," Jacob yelled. "_You're screwing up the world!" _

"Oh yeah, then who should be?" Ryan demanded. "You?" I felt like he was going somewhere with this. I felt like he was leading this somewhere.

"Yeah!" Jacob said, walking right into it. "Maybe I should be!"

"Glad to hear you say it," Ryan said with a sudden calm smile. "Because we've got a way to deal with that here."

--

"It's called a challenge," Spencer explained to us. "Real wolf packs do it all the time—I can't believe you guys have never heard of this."

"Well, you know," Sam said. Once we got downstairs, he had gone straight to Emily. Spencer told me he had been there all night. Sam wasn't the type to cry or scream or break down, but if he thought he was fooling anyone he was wrong. It was on his face and the way he held his shoulders. If he was telling the truth about the imprint being broken, then surely it should have softened the blow—technically the emotions had been created and so couldn't they be taken away? But still—she had been his Emily for a long time. She had been huge and pieces of him.

There was a part of me that still wondered if all these declarations of love were just that—him having lost something and trying to find me to fill the hole. If he was hanging onto me like a person would hang onto the edge of a cliff—not as a lover but a savior. A necessary diversion, a replacement Emily. Next question: did it matter? There was a time when I would have taken Sam hypnotized, half-crazy, blind or love-spelled. Was I still at that point?

"We're a pretty new pack," he said steadily. Trying to play it straight. "And we don't really ever tend to want to kill each other."

"Hmm," Spencer said with innocent tonelessness. "Surprising."

"Jacob," I said uneasily. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Emily's body was still laying on the bar, and we were all trying very hard not to look at it. I didn't want to have another corpse to avoid, whichever way it turned out. Jacob was an occasional knucklehead but he was a good guy, and the more he grew up, the more I liked him. He annoyed me but I didn't want him dead. Ryan also annoyed me but I had _never _wished him dead. He was annoying in the way that wet socks or word problems were annoying, peripheral and avoidable–not in a way that deserved a death penalty. This was not going to end well. This was not going to end well.

Jacob cracked his knuckles like a schoolyard thug. "Oh yeah," he said, grinning. "I want to do this."


	25. Chapter 25

Chase was a problem.

It was hard for me to imagine the kid as really part of this tear-em-up Children of the Moon culture—how could he possibly go out at night eating people and come back looking so pure? I hated to think it, but maybe it was all part of an act. Because I knew he wasn't pure. Chase had killed Emily Young.

I was about ninety percent sure of this. I had seen him last with her—I had seen him _fighting _with her, I had just—not really thought it was a big deal. I was trying not to think about that, in perspective of me leaving her alone and all, but the fact was there had only been about five people in the building and four of them had been very busy. Chase had killed Emily.

Okay, so it wouldn't have held up in court. Maybe it would if I submitted as evidence the way he looked this morning—polaroids of him looking guilty, shifty, shuffling his feet on the ground and pulling his shirtsleeves over his hands. This guy was wearing regret like a bad hangover, black and bruised with it. He did not ever look at Emily—skirted around her body with fifteen feet to spare.

It was hard to be sure, though, because the atmosphere was so strange today—the kind of humming tension that came with an uncomfortable wait. Violence held in suspension—everyone frozen in the act of jumping for each others' throats. In fact, one of the only good parts about this—_challenge _thing was that everyone else had to stay _out _of it. They got to be the circled warriors around the duel, watching for the outcome—they did not get to influence it in any way, didn't get to kill anyone involved. Good thing, because at the moment basically everyone wanted to kill everyone else.

If anyone was unafraid of crossing enemy lines, though, it was Ryan. "Leah," he said, sliding into the seat next to me. "You look absolutely beautiful this morning. Green is really your color."

"Oh, stop," I said tonelessly. "You're making me blush."

"You didn't think I'd forgotten about you, did you?"

"One can hope," I grumbled. "Listen, Ryan, considering our packs are embroiled in a bloody Shakespearean feud, don't you think you might want to save the romance for later?"

"You aren't a part of that," he said breezily. "You're my mate."

I banged my head on the table. "Ryan," I said, words muffled by the wood. "You are impossible."

"Just think, Leah," he gushed. "The first werewolf children in the history of the world! A hybrid between our species! Aren't you excited to be a part of that?"

"I can't believe I'm even _speaking _this sentence," I fumed, "but I am _not having your babies._"

"Wow," Spencer said, sliding in on my other side. "Sounds like it's really picking up between you two lovebirds."

"Shut up," I said.

"Darling, I couldn't agree more," Ryan said coolly. "Chase! Get him out of my sight."

Chase jumped at the sound of his name but hurried over, grabbing Spencer's arm, but Spencer already had one broken bone, thanks, and I didn't like the idea of him acquiring any more. I stood and put my hands flat on Chase's chest and shoved him away—straight into the bar, his arms and back falling against Emily's body. Sam sat up at once, snarling from the back of his throat, but he didn't need to worry—Chase had already jumped away like he was on pins, disproportionate hysterical reaction so over-the-top that Sam looked at him funny. Trying to figure out why—and Lord, I hoped he didn't. Was it wrong that I still sort of liked Chase?

"Would you mind maybe watching it?" Sam said, his voice still down in the growl register. "That's my wife."

"Calm down, Sam," I snapped—trying to take the attention away from both Chase and Emily. "It's not like he lit her on fire or anything."

He looked surprised, then confused, then thoughtful, all in quick succession. "Did you used to be so sarcastic?" he asked me—not mean, just curious.

"Honestly?" I said. "No."

I should have been alarmed that he'd just barely noticed my defining characteristic, but it made sense. For two years I had been nothing more to him than a vague Leah-shaped blur in the corners of his eyes. He had known me when I was sweet and pleasant and good—Emily 1.0. I was not that anymore.

"I happen to like your sarcasm," Spencer said glibly. "Just for the record."

"Wait a second, I was just saying—" Sam started, exasperated.

"Can't take it back now," Spencer cut him off. "You said it and you meant it."

There were so many things to ignite—there were so many elements here and so many of them were dangerous. It was like trying to seat a wedding party only if you got it wrong, your guests were going to kill each other. Really, what should have happened is that everyone should have been staying apart—Spencer, Sam, Ryan, Chase, they should have _all _been in different rooms, if not different continents. The problem was, they all seemed to just want to be wherever I was. I was thinking maybe perhaps I should hide again. We just needed another few hours. Jacob and Ryan would fight. I would make my decision. We just needed to make it tonight without incident, and then everything would be fine.

Of course, since things hadn't exploded yet, it was time for another match to get thrown on. As Spencer and Sam glared at each other across the room, Jacob sat down across from us and distracted us all. Because Ryan immediately coiled like he might be ready to pounce, his hands gripping tighter on the armrests of his chair. Chase tensed to match him and every werewolf in the place sat up, suddenly alert to the presence of Public Enemy No. 1.

"Morning, guys," he said briskly, seemingly unaware of the sudden attention. "Wow, what a night! I don't suppose I could get a cup of coffee?"

Spencer got up wordlessly and headed for the bar, walking wide around Sam and Emily, doing us all a favor. We really shouldn't be getting in brawls before our big, important scheduled brawl. But hey, that was what Jacob was here to talk about. "So," he said, plopping his hands down on the table. "Let's talk shop."

"Yes," Ryan said, switching over suddenly to razor-sharp, clinical cool. He had a truly incredible focus, a needle point of it, but it came at the expense of everything else. He said he loved, me but the instant Jacob showed up he was not paying _any _attention to me anymore, I was _invisible_. Ryan had things to do. Good thing I didn't actually want to date him, or this would have been a problem. "Let's."

"I'm thinking specifics," Jacob said briskly. Like it was a business meeting and they were going to pull out spreadsheets and itineraries any moment now. "Most importantly, are we going to do this as wolves or as humans?"

"Jacob's stronger as a human," I pointed out. I knew Ryan would never admit it, so I was just going to help them get it out there. It was just a genetic thing—we were more wolf when we were human than they were—our bodies had changed when we had become werewolves, theirs hadn't.

Ryan's gaze flicked to me, sharply, like he hadn't quite remembered that I was there. What a sweetheart. "Leah, do you think you could give us a moment?"

Oh, he did not just say that. He did not just dismiss me like some kind of trophy wife, like some kind of _bimbo _who couldn't handle the serious conversations. He did not just do that. "_Fine,_" I spat, standing up quick enough to knock my chair over backward. I was pissed and I didn't want to screw things up, but I was going to have a tantrum and they were going to know it. "You want a moment? Sure! Take as long as you want."

I stalked over to the bar straight toward Chase, causing him to practically dive out of the way as he saw me coming and saw the expression on my face. "Yeah, that's right," I snapped at him. "Move. You shouldn't be here by the body anyway."

"Why shouldn't he be by the body?" Sam asked instantly. Whoops. Should have known he'd pick up on it, he was all tenterhooks this morning. The shock starting to wear off. "What's wrong with him?"

"Nothing," I said quickly.

"I didn't—" Chase said at the same time.

"Didn't what?" Sam latched onto the guilt in Chase's voice, ignoring me, _everyone _was ignoring me today. He started coming out from behind the bar, moving toward Chase with his shoulders thrust forward.

"Sam, it's nothing!" I lied my head off. Must distract him, must defuse this. "Come here, I want to talk to you. Come here, Sam!"

He did not come here. I tell you, between him and Ryan—if they wanted to be with me they were going to have to listen to me. They were not listening. They were looking straight through me to the people behind me. "Do you know something about Emily?" he demanded, backing Chase up into the wall. "Do you know about how she died?"

"What do you mean, uncivilized?" Ryan's voice broke in from behind us, loud and heated. "You do not _tell _us about uncivilized, you are _American!_"

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Jacob yelled back. Out of control, out of _control. _It was so close to explosion and I felt like standing on the table and screaming for it to stop. Because _that _would really help.

Chase was seconds away from dropping to the floor and putting his arms over his head to protect himself, couldn't look Sam in the eyes could not fight back against accusations that were probably technically true. "Did you kill her?" Sam was yelling now, starting to figure it out. Never would have known if we had all just been able to keep it _together, _but too late. It was flying apart, shrapnel every which way. "Huh? Is that it? Did you kill Emily?"

"You want to be Alpha to a pack that you have _decimated?_" Ryan yelled over top of him. "You think they're going to _accept _you?"

"They'll accept whoever is strongest!" Jacob yelled back.

"Did you kill Emily?" Sam demanded, shoving Chase back into the wall.

_"Yes!" _


	26. Chapter 26

"Did you kill Emily?" Sam demanded, his hands planted on the wall on either side of Chase's head, yelling in his face. Like a drill sergeant, like an interrogator, just _breaking _him down through sheer force and volume.

Chase couldn't take it. Sam asked and he told him, the answer popped loose under pressure. "Yes!" he yelled back, sheer instinctual response.

I watched the word jump of out his mouth, almost involuntary and instantly regretted. I had the time to swear quietly, once, under my breath. And then I watched the world absolutely explode.

All Sam needed was confirmation—he reacted in a split second, grabbing Chase by the throat and throwing him into the table, right into the middle of a fight that had just broken out between Jacob and Ryan, a rolling wrestling locker-room brawl that was not affected in the slightest by the Chase's body knocking the table out from between them. Sam stalked after him as he scrambled to his hands and knees, kicking him in the ribs before he could get up, and this had to be _stopped. _Everyone else seemed to be occupied, so I had to stop it.

First things first—I jumped in front of them as the werewolves started to do their hyena thing, getting up and getting involved, and I made sure that they did not. "Stay!" I yelled, as if they were nothing more dangerous than dogs. "Stay back!" I could only hope they would listen—I remembered the first night I was here and I thought they would, they still somewhat worshiped me, still watched me when I walked and thought I was a mystery and a minor goddess. I was going to be their Alpha's mate someday and I was going to be the future of their species—at least as far as they knew. And I had a good yelling voice.

They paused in their tracks, for long enough that I could grab Chase by the collar and Jacob by the arm and haul them bodily out of their respective fights. Ryan and Sam came instantly after them, and Chase and Jacob weren't exactly cooperative themselves, but it was up to _me _to sort this out and damn it, I was going to do it. I was the only woman in this testosterone-fest, and in my opinion that made me smarter. I could think for ten seconds without wanting to smash someone's face in, and I knew what needed to be done.

I yanked Chase out of the way as Sam jumped for him and threw Jacob ahead of me, slamming him into the wall—calmed him down a little bit before I got there and dragged him through the window. Ryan started climbing through after us and I shoved him back, yelling "Nope! No, I don't think so!" I stuck my head back through the window so I could address everyone, and I put on my best yelling voice.

"Jacob and Chase are leaving now!" I yelled at them, especially at Sam and Ryan, who were practically foaming at the mouth. "They are leaving and you are _not_ going to know where they're going! They will come back tonight at _five o'clock, _at which time we will _have _our stupid werewolf deathmatch, and that is that! five o'clock! Goodbye!"

"Leah!" Sam protested, reaching out for me but I snatched my hand away—I wasn't going to chance getting swayed by him, I wasn't going to give him a chance to ask.

"Leah, the vampires—" Ryan tried, but I was not buying it.

"It's sunny! There are no vampires!" I replied, dragging them away. "Goodbye!"

--

We went to the zoo.

Mostly we went to the zoo out of a total lack of anything else to do. It wasn't even my idea. After standing around for a little while on a platform in the underground with our arms crossed, trying not to think about our respective huge problems and think about something to do for six hours instead, eventually that was what Chase suggested. He lived in London and we didn't, and besides, I hadn't been to the zoo in years.

We went to see the wolves first. We also went to see them right before we left. It was just kind of a natural pull for us—we saw them down there all slinky and feral, padding over the man-made rocks, and we knew what it felt like. I felt as if I should wink to them or something, to nod to them and say yes, brothers, I know how it is. Maybe it was the Native American in me. Ha.

Here was something I hadn't anticipated: Chase and Jacob got along really, really well. Obviously it was awhile before we even started speaking, semi-traumatized as the three of us were, but before I knew it they were cracking stupid jokes and swapping dating stories. Boys were funny that way—there weren't layers to their friendships the way their were in female friendships, there wasn't that paranoia and the dialogue behind each others' backs. If things clicked, then they clicked. I think we had our first real cross-cultural connection.

It was Chase who told us we should be getting home, though, eyes on the skyline as the sun started to creep down towards it. "It's the last night of the full moon," he said. "If you guys want to do this as humans, we'd better get back there."

"If you take long enough," I mused, "you might end up fighting as wolves anyway. It would be interesting to see both."

"Yeah," Jacob said tonelessly. "Really interesting."

"At least the whole pack will be off the streets for part of the night," I said philosophically, leaning on the nearest seat in our Underground car. "Maybe it'll lessen the body count."

"You know, we don't all just go around eating people all the time," Chase said irritably.

This was news to me. "You don't?"

"Well," he admitted. "Okay, most of us do. But sometimes some of us don't."

"I don't understand."

"Other things work," he informed me. "Cats. Deer. Rare to medium steaks."

"Well, if you can eat that kind of thing, than why do you eat people?" I demanded. Good thing there weren't very many people in our car. "It is really not considered very nice!"

"Listen, Leah, it's hard to think of _anything _when you're in wolf form," he explained. "It's hard to think of anything besides eating people, at least, that's what the wolf wants to do. It's like being the world's worst alcoholic. Times about a million."

"Yeah, well," I said acidly, he was _not _off the hook. "If vampires can do it, then you can do it."

"Um," he said blankly. "Vampires _don't _do it."

"Don't worry about it," Jacob said, smiling wryly. "You don't know the weirdo vampires that we do."

"No," Chase said, eyebrows still raised. "I guess not."

--

"Okay," I instructed the two boys as we stood right in front of Lycaon's door. "No antagonizing. Don't antagonize _anyone._"

"Except me," Jacob protested.

"Except you," I agreed, "but you are only allowed to antagonize Ryan. And only when you're fighting him. Otherwise be nice."

"Wow," Jacob said, opening the door. "I never thought I'd see the day when Leah Clearwater was telling _me _to be nice."

"If you were nice in the first place, you wouldn't need it," I retorted. And then no more time for conversation, because the instant we walked in we had attention. Dozens of pairs of eyes, the kind of intense scrutiny that I had come to associate with London. Strangely enough I was starting to get used to it.

"_Leah._" Sam headed immediately toward me, with a speed that made me step instinctively in front of Chase, but he was coming to hug me and not to kill anyone. "Thank God you're back. I was worried."

"What, did you think I was going to get myself killed?" I asked with a very slight sharpness. It was gratifying, and incredibly cute that he was concerned, but he really should trust me. I could take care of myself—hadn't he noticed?

"You never know," he said neutrally. Behind him, I saw Spencer give me a sardonic smile and a wave from the bar. Smart guy—he was staying out of the way. I still sort of wished he would come hug me, too.

"Jacob," Ryan said briskly, stepping up to the dais. "Nice to see you. Five o'clock right on the dot."

"You know me," Jacob said, already taking off his jacket, rolling up his sleeves. Boy, they weren't wasting any time, were they? "Mr. Punctuality."

They moved down onto the floor, already circling each other—the werewolves forming a concentric circle around them, behind them along the walls. I got the feeling that perhaps they might be inclined to attack if someone looked weak. Like sharks with blood in the water. It wasn't terribly fair, but I thought it might happen. Then again, I was pretty much banking on Jacob not being weak.

"Leah, want to start us out here?" Ryan asked, kicking off his shoes.

"Start you out?" _You're going to need to explain what you're talking about, crazy guy._

"Just yell go," Jacob translated. "We need somebodyto start us."

Oh. So I was the trackside bimbo again, waving the checkered flag. Fabulous. I have to say, this whole thing with being the only girl in sight had its perks, but it did encourage sexism, didn't it?

"Right." I said, not amused. "Whatever. Go."


	27. Chapter 27

AUTHOR'S NOTE: 200 reviews! Thank you so much, guys! Seriously, you have no idea how much I appreciate the feedback, it is just...chocolate and sunshine. I am deeply and romantically in love with every single one of you. That's right. I am.

--

Just for the record: Ryan cheated.

He did. He cheated. If he ended up killing Jacob, I was totally going to call foul. Because I was supposed to tell them when to go, right? Well, Ryan moved _way _before I said go. He was that kid you race on the playground who jumps the gun and gets a ten-second head start, and then you spend the rest of the race yelling at him from behind that he's a filthy dirty cheat. Yeah, when I said "go"? He was already halfway across the room. By the time the word got out of my mouth, he was already hitting Jacob, already _there. _Because he was a _cheater. _

"Hey!" I yelled ineffectively. Referee. We should have had a referee. Thank you, hindsight. "Hey, Ryan! That's not okay!"

Sam grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back as I started to go after them, yelling and stabbing an accusatory finger in Ryan's direction. "Leah! You can't interfere with this, understand?"

"I understand, okay?" Do you think I'm stupid, Sam? Do you think I'm _Emily_? "He _cheated._"

Jacob and Ryan had landed in a tangled heap on the ground with Ryan on top, but that changed quickly as Jacob grabbed him by the collar and pulled him in, landing a solid punch to Ryan's mouth, unbalancing him enough that Jacob could push himself back up and get to his feet, aiming a kick at Ryan that never landed because Ryan had already wrapped his legs around Jacob and scissored them from under him.

"I don't think there's such a thing as cheating right now," Sam tried to convince me. "It's anything goes, and we have got to _stay out of this. _We're lucky it ended up this way, one on one, because we are _very _outnumbered. We have to let Jacob fight this battle for us."

Jacob pulled out of Ryan's armlock and I heard a loud _snap_, something breaking somewhere in the arm that made him scramble back, swearing—I couldn't see any obvious injuries so maybe it had been a small bone in his forearm, his hand? I hoped it was nothing important. He needed time for it to heal, not much but some and enough for his superhuman healing to knit everything together, and Ryan was not giving him that time. He got to Jacob and grabbed him and threw him back into a cluster of watching werewolves, so that Jacob had to roll away as they reached and snapped for him, making it very clear why he should stay within their boundaries.

"Why do you _treat _me like that?" I wanted to know. "I am _not _fifteen years old anymore, Sam!"

"I just love, you, Leah!" he tried to explain. "I want you to be safe!"

"No," I spat. "You want me to be _boring._"

I stalked away from him, I had to get some _distance _between this and me, but instantly as I turned I regretted it. What was I doing? He was everything I wanted, he was two years' worth of depression and daydreams, and I was yelling at him? I was walking away from him? Was I _crazy? _I loved him. I wanted to touch him and kiss him and watch him for the rest of my life without feeling embarrassed. It was just that sometimes he made me mad.

I couldn't just stand here calmly and watch Ryan and Jacob like it was a football game on TV. I would find time to be in love with Sam later. For now, I had to move. I walked away and saw Spencer looking at me with come-here eyes, so I went there. I slid behind the bar with him and faced the other direction, so I could only hear the thumps and thuds and yells and not see any of it at all. Slightly less stressful.

"Hi," I said tightly, the tension all wound up there in my voice. This was an important moment, this moment was a _big deal, _and no one wanted to talk about it. They only wanted to watch. Well, I wasn't much of a just-watching kind of person. I had tension. I had energy. I needed distracting and needed to vent. I needed someone to pay attention to me. "This is stupid. I think this is stupid."

"What's stupid about it?" he asked, honestly surprised. Fundamental Difference Between Guys and Girls #2: guys thought that violence was an appropriate and perfectly acceptable way to solve any and all problems. Girls were usually going to think about the issue over and over in their heads, come up with a million possible solutions and clever little game plans, try to implement seventeen of them at once, and then get bitter and upset when one of them failed and spend the rest of their life obsessing over it. Guys were pretty much just going to slug it out.

"Well," I tried to explain. "At the end of this, one of them is going to be dead!"

"True," he agreed. "Isn't that the point?"

I was really not getting through, was I? "Don't you think there might be a better way to solve it?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know!" I waved my hands wildly. "Hopscotch tournament?"

"Good idea," he grinned. "I'll be sure to suggest that for the future." He walked over next to me and levered himself one-handed up onto the bar, sitting above me and looking down.

"What happened to Emily?" I noticed suddenly. Did you still call a dead body by its given name? Did she become something not-Emily the instant she died? "What happened to the body?" I added just in case. Semantics.

"Sam had her body sent back to the States," he informed me. "He was—pretty messed up, Leah. It wasn't pretty. He told me not to tell you. He doesn't want you to see how he is about her still."

"Then why are you telling me?" I asked, glancing back at Sam and catching a few seconds of the fight—Jacob flipping Ryan over his back and slamming him to the ground. Yeesh. I looked away again.

"Because I think it might affect your opinion of him," he said shamelessly. "I'm completely willing to play dirty to get you, Leah. I don't know if you consider that romantic or whatever, but I am."

"Oh yeah," I said sardonically. "Totally a turn-on." Actually, kind of yeah. But before I could decide for sure, there was crash of glass and a throated cry from Jacob that made me close my eyes and put my face in my hands. "How long is this going to last?"

He cast a critical eye on the fight behind us, and estimated, "I'd say another fifteen minutes. Maybe half an hour."

"Half an _hour?_"

There was a sudden sound in the club, a twisting cracking bone-and-skin noise that was too big and too collective to be part of the fight. I turned and saw them shifting—the change rippling through the crowd of them one man at a time, jackknifing them over and turning them into something, distorting them into wolves. "Maybe shorter," Spencer said.

"Oh dear."

Spencer jumped off the bar and walked quickly toward the window, running his hand through his hair so that it stuck up at insane angles. "That's not right, is it? Aren't there only two nights of full moon this month?"

"No, I'm pretty sure there are three," I said, nodding to the sudden cadre of snarling, rabid animals filling the club. It made me feel suddenly vulnerable, paranoid. I actually thought about shifting myself, but no—still no. I didn't want to. I couldn't find a reason to. Why should I be something more than human? In fact, why should I be more than human ever again? I had nothing I cared about enough to really want to protect. I had nothing to be supernatural for.

Spencer got to the window and looked up at the moon, double-checking that it was there and full, then turned back to me. And stopped. "Come over here," he said.

I happened to be very comfortable. And most of the glass was still gone from that particular window, it was cold and misty. "Why?" I demanded.

"Well, if you must know," he told me, "because you look really pretty right now and I really want to kiss you."

"Oh," I said blankly, but I couldn't leave it at that, couldn't shut up. Could never shut up. "Why?"

"Why do you look pretty or why do I want to kiss you?"

"I don't know. Both."

"You look pretty because you are pretty," he said matter-of-factly. "And I want to kiss you because I love you."

I nearly choked and died. "You—what?"

He didn't answer me. He looked like he was about to, but he didn't get a chance, because as he stood there Corin appeared suddenly behind him and reached through the window and grabbed Spencer by his arm and the back of his neck and slammed him sideways into the windowsill.

He went instantly limp, like a puppet with its strings cut, and by the time I got to the window Corin had already passed him back to Felix, and by the time I got out the window after them he was already halfway across the parking lot with Spencer in his arms.

I meant to go after them. I meant to chase them down and tear Spencer away from them and probably kick them in the shins or kill them or something. But the moment I got out the window I looked up and saw him, got a clear shot of him lying unconscious in Felix's arms—and _wow_. Seismic shift.

Like something had suddenly pulled the whole Earth out from under my feet. And it was just him. Everything was him. The sun and the moon and the stars were suddenly so much less bright and less important, and nothing was holding me to the earth except Spencer Weston.


	28. Chapter 28

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Short one this time, sorry—just another segue chapter. Also sorry for leaving you with such an unclarified cliffhanger on the imprinting issue—I swear I actually had a point :) :). Hopefully it should all be explained in this chapter, but if you still have questions about the details of the imprinting, just PM me. I try not to be confusing, but sometimes it just happens :). Anyway, y'all are still great, and thanks for reading.

--

It was some time before I could move. Or, you know—see or hear or breathe, or anything important like that. It was such a hard hit of a moment, it was _such _a knockout blow. Concussion. Paralysis. Total cerebral electrocution.

But I'm making it sound like a bad thing, and it wasn't. It wasn't a bad feeling at all. It was like the way people fall in love in movies and TV—the sweeping music, the glitter and animated hearts floating over your head. The absolute sudden and epic scope of it. Suddenly it all made sense. Suddenly, I knew what all the fuss had been about. And if this was what Sam had felt when he looked at Emily, then I really could not blame him. Imprinting. Wow. So this was what it felt like.

Actually, the only problem with the feeling was that it was, as I said—a little paralyzing. A total out-of-body experience that yes, was a little traumatic to body and mind, so by the time I got back to myself, the parking lot was empty. Felix and Corin and Heidi were gone, and Spencer was gone with them. Spencer Spencer Spencer. He was on the tip of my tongue and he was every single thought, and he was in trouble. He was gone. My life just had fantastic timing, didn't it?

I heard someone climbing through the window behind me, but I didn't even turn, whoever it was couldn't possibly be important. "Leah?" Sam's voice. And for the first time it didn't spark anything in me. Didn't incite anything, didn't ignite anything, no ripples no fire. It was hard to believe I had ever loved him. Whatever I felt, that had been nothing. And whatever I felt for him now was literally nothing. I still couldn't be bothered to turn around. "What is going on here?"

"Spencer's gone," I said, kicking my shoes off. "The vampires took him. I'm leaving. See you later."

"What do you mean you're leaving?" Poor guy. He had no idea what had just happened. Absolutely no clue that history had been altered and the stars realigned, and that he had just become obsolete. "Leah, what about the fight? What about your decision?"

"Decision's been made," I informed him matter-of-factly. "I just imprinted on Spencer."

"You _what_?"

"I just imprinted on Spencer," I repeated calmly. Fact.

"What are you talking about? When?"

"Just now. A few seconds ago," I said. "The vampires took him. I'm not sure where, but I think probably back to Italy. Wherever they're taking him, I am going there. Goodbye."

"You can't be serious!" Okay, so I had to admit I was a little sorry for him. I remembered vaguely what it meant to chase a person who was not in love with you, but that seemed all very much in the past. Things were perfect now. Things had shaken around like crazy for so long and suddenly, absolutely fallen into place. And he was not part of it.

Also I had to notice that I didn't feel like yelling at him. Usually there was such a hurricane in me, absolute churning chaos, and now there just wasn't. I wasn't sure how long the new calm was going to last—there were definitely elements of other feelings, like a biting anxiety for Spencer, but overall it was just calm. For the first time since I could remember, I was not worried about how things were going to turn out.

"Sam," I said. "I am so serious. You have no idea how serious I am."

"You can't have imprinted," he argued. Throwing every excuse he had at me, one after the other. The denial, the hysteria—I remembered how it felt. But I knew the other side of the coin now too. He might as well been standing on train tracks, waving, telling the train to stop. "You've been with him for _days, _and you're saying it just _now _clicked for you?"

"Don't give me that," I said witheringly. "Jared sat next to Kim in class for sixteen years before he turned around one day and saw the love of his life. _You_ know it. _You_ know this is real."

"Leah, how can I even trust you?" He was getting pissed and petty, suddenly all the tables turned over on top of him. "Last time you told us you'd imprinted, you were lying!"

"You can believe me or not," I told him. "I really actually don't care. See you later, Sam." I shrugged my jacket off and I shifted.

God, it felt so good. Why had I ever thought I could live without this? I thought I was human but I wasn't. I thought I could just be nothing but human but I was not human anymore. There were wolves inside of me, not frightening or monstrous but natural, and exciting. There was a strange femininity to it, a sudden savage empowerment; I was an animal avatar goddess, I was beautiful-wild. It was so a part of me and it had been so ready to be released.

My front paws hit the pavement and my spine snapped into place, vertebrae by vertebrae, my tail switching out to the side. The instant all four paws were on the ground, I was _moving_, pushing off the asphalt into a long, easy lope. They had a head start but I could smell their trail in an instant with my new wolf nose, blazing toxic vampire scent like neon arrows out of the parking lot and down the street.

I became a wolf and I ran, and I left Sam behind me.


	29. Chapter 29

I didn't miss Sam. It was refreshing how much I didn't miss him. I didn't miss Sam and I didn't miss Ryan or Chase or even Jacob as I ran away from them through the warren of backalleys till they broke into patchwork countryside colored black and slate-silver by the moonlight. I didn't think about them and I didn't even miss them.

I have to admit, though, it was hard to leave London behind. I felt like stopping a million times on the way out of the city to change back to human, just so I would have hands to trail along the marbled gray stone as I passed, touch the silk Chinatown banners and wrought-iron garden gates. Like you would hug a friend as you said goodbye—holding them just to get a last memory of how they feel, what they are when you touch them.

But I had things to do. I had people that I did miss, one all-important person. I wanted to see him _now, _I wanted to have him, save him, but these damn vampires were so _fast. _I was regretting every second I'd spent talking to Sam, every word I'd said to him that had been another step they'd gotten ahead of me. Why should I have to explain myself to him? Why had I waited? They were taking Spencer down the coast and into Italy, and I was so far behind. What if they hurt him? What if they killed him? If they killed him I would kill them all, I would torch their Italian palaces where they thought they were safe and burn them to the ground. And then most likely I would lay down somewhere and die myself. Spencer seemed to now be the most important part of life. At least equivalent or more important to air.

Here's something to write home about: I swam the English Channel. Yep. I did. I swam it. I swam the English Channel for Spencer, how's that for romantic? I don't know what the vampires did, if they took a ferry or what, but I basically just got to the beach and said to hell with it, I've run out of land, I'm not going to stop. Wolves were pretty good swimmers—and I was a great swimmer, which was really all that mattered. I lived on a beach. Granted, it wasn't one of those white-sands Malibu-type beaches, but there was water, and waves, right there fifty feet from my house. My dad used to get us up in the mornings, when I was in junior high, and take us out swimming just as the tide came in. Let me tell you, that was definitely one way to wake up.

France was a blur. I barely remembered France, but I'm sure it was a very nice and interesting country. Maybe I'd come back and visit someday, but _not now. _Now it was all about chasing the neon vampire-scent arrows as fast as I could, and they led to Italy. I really wasn't sure where I was going—my only sense of direction was _vampires passed here­—_but when I saw the sign saying Volterra, it rang a bell. Volterra. Volturi. Yes, I'd heard the stories. Volterra, Italy, the safest place on Earth for a human—under the wing of powerful vampires who had no had no intention of spoiling their Eden with missing persons reports, the absolute safest place if you were a human. But only if you were a human. For me, this place was death.

_Doesn't matter. Don't care. _I was here for Spencer and dying was a complete non-issue. Nobody had tried to kill me yet, so it was really just a matter of rolling with the punches.

Volterra was slightly difficult—mostly because it was now day, had been for several hours. I hadn't had to deal with it yet because I hadn't had to go into any cities, even get near them—I could be a completely unindigenous giant wolf running through the woods and farmlands without a whole lot of concern for secrecy, but I couldn't be a completely unindigenous giant wolf in a city of eleven thousand people.

So I snatched a slip-dress off a clothesline outside the city and went in human—salmon wasn't really a good color for me, but you did what you had to. It seemed to be a good color for the city, in any case—the buildings here were all sand-colored, dust-colored—light beiges and browns from the warm ground tones of a desert. But this was not a desert by any means—lush bunches and stands of trees surrounding the city and scattered between the buildings, bright live bursting green.

Everything was made of stone like in London, but here the stone seemed so—delicate. Everything was carved and crenellated, cut out with a thousand shaped windows, eyeleted. Bursts of high color in painted shutters or flower windowboxes, splashed against the warm browns and rust colors. Eyecatchers. No denying it, this was a beautiful city. But of course it was no London.

Because this city was out to kill me. It wasn't mildly, edgily dangerous in the way that London was—in the way that they guy across the room with a leather jacket and three piercings might be, the kind of dangerous that was blood-thrilling and magnetic. No, this was a different kind of dangerous altogether—a cold and malicious premeditated danger that had me looking over my shoulder from the moment I walked in.

I sort of felt like everyone was looking at me. I suppose there could be honest reasons for this, for example because I was barefoot and crazy-haired, walking through the streets in nothing but my salmon slip. It was the same kind of feeling, though, the sense of maliciousness under the stares. I felt like every single person that passed me was either a vampire or very closely affliated—the stench was so strong here that I couldn't tell human from monster, would have to get too close for comfort to know for sure. It was disconcerting. It was overcast here today, not with the gray heaviness of a London storm but enough clouds to block the sun. Enough clouds for monsters.

It also meant that I had lost the trail. I had cleverly managed to narrow Spencer's location down to two thousand square miles. Hooray for me. Now I needed a better plan. Here was something that might help, though: I was pretty sure someone was following me.

It was sort of hard to tell. It was only about two in the afternoon, there were lots of people out on the streets, and some of them were yes, walking behind me. On the other hand, none of them were waking with the kind of intent of the tall, lean man behind me, and none for as long. To make completely sure, I just went about walking like a crazy person for a few minutes—turning sharply and suddenly, stopping for no reason, reversing direction—and when I got done, the man was still behind me. Okay. Good. He was following me. Now it was time to do something about it. Time for that new plan.

Unfortunately, he also seemed to have a plan, and his plan went into action slightly more quickly than mine. I had just been planning to stop suddenly at the opening of the nearest alleyway so that he collided with me, then grab him and pull him into it. When I stopped, though, he was already there—grabbing _me _before I could grab him, the jerk, completely stealing my thunder by dragging me sideways into the mouth of the alley.

Of course, I was not going to take this quietly, so we scuffled around for a bit in the alley like a mugging gone weirdly wrong, and eventually broke from each other and stood warily on either side of the alley, hands out to our sides.

"Vampire," I identified, pulling my accusation from his too-pale olivetone skin and deep burgundy eyes.

"Werewolf," he replied promptly. "And therefore very stupid to be wandering about in our city. Do you have a death wish, _tesorina?_"

"I can take care of myself," I told him archly.

"Oh, you think so?" he said, sounding amused. "If I hadn't been sent for you, you would be dead already."

"Sent for me?"

"Yes." He gave a little bow. Everything was so _formal_ here, so strangely antiquated. What a strange little kingdom they had built. "I am to take you to the Volturi."

"Not to kill me?" I asked warily.

"Not to kill you," he confirmed. Possibly lying. It was hard to tell with those flat red eyes, not a lot of emotion really showed up. "My masters seem to have some interest in you, Leah Clearwater."

"Great," I huffed. "Interest." I suppose I should be grateful that I was interesting. "What if I said no?"

"Then I would knock you out, throw you over my shoulder, and take you anyway," he explained matter-of-factly.

"I was just curious," I said. "I have every intention of coming with you. In fact, I'm glad you found me. But just so you know, you couldn't have beat me."

"Perhaps not," he agreed diplomatically, leading the way out of the alley. "I'm Dimitri, by the way."

"And I don't care," I snapped, snatching my arm away from him as he tried to take it. "Don't touch me."

Okay, so I was a little tense. I think it was understandable, considering that I was about to walk straight into the lair of my most powerful enemies. This wasn't exactly how I had wanted to handle it—I'd definitely been anticipating a little more sneaking and ambushing on my part—but what were my options here? I didn't know where they were. There was no way I could find out where they were. The only people I knew who had been _inside _their headquarters—freakin' Bella and Edward—had gotten inside in pretty much exactly the same way—catching their attention enough to get dragged inside. So technically, I was doing it right. All I had to worry about was getting out alive. No big deal. I would wing it.

We walked through the city for awhile, and I focused on trying not to yelp when I stepped on a rock or a part of a beer bottle. Shoes. I really needed to figure out how to carry shoes. I was barely paying attention when we stopped, and at first I didn't know there was a reason for it. I mean, there was nothing _here—_there was no buildings, no landmarks, no reason for us to stop at all. Just a sidestreet in a pretty empty part of town, full of old buildings, half fallen and historical.

"What?" I demanded crossly. "Do you _need _something?" Dimitri ignored me—he was already down on his knees, pulling the cover away from a manhole. "What—hey, what are you doing?"

"You wanted to see the Volturi, didn't you?"

"Yeah? And?" I really didn't see what this had to with manholes.

"And we're going to see them," he said, nodding down the hole with the cover held in both hands.

I looked down the manhole, down the ladder into the sewer below. It clicked. "Oh," I said, "you have got to be kidding me."


	30. Chapter 30

At least it wasn't a sewer.

That's honestly what I had thought it would be. I mean, when someone pries up a manhole and tells you to hop inside, what else are you going to think? But I said screw it and I climbed down that ladder, because Spencer was down there, and I would climb through so much worse for this for him. I would jump off the edge of the world for him.

When I got to the bottom of the ladder, though, I was surprised to find my feet hitting dry brick—a long dim tunnel the color of the city, desert beige. Nothing gross, nothing scary. Well, nothing scary beyond the fact that I was deliberately walking into a den of vicious, nasty, bloodthirsty vampires. Nothing except that. I tried to calm my breathing.

Demitri raised his eyebrows at me, damn it I hoped he couldn't see me freezing up. Vampires had an instinct for that sort of thing. "What?" I snapped defensively. It wasn't like I was _intimidated_ by them. They were just _vampires, _they were nothing, the mosquitoes of the Earth. It was just that I didn't really want to die. "Are we going?"

"You okay?" he said, smiling. Drawing from my fear the way vampires did.

"Listen, you've got to lead the way," I talked over the top of him. Doing the two-year lie, the _yes I'm fine, _yes_ I'm fine, and I'm mean and I'm scary stay away. _"You're the one who knows where we're going."

He started walking but kept that sly smile, passive-aggressively pissing me off even as he did what I asked. Vampires! I _hated _vampires! They were horrible and nasty and nothing close to human. I wanted to kill every single one of them, I wanted to kill them _all. _Which I guess meant that I was in the right profession.

I wished Dimitri would walk faster. I wanted to see Spencer. I wanted to be in and out, I wanted to snatch him out of here, I wanted to be back in London. When I'd been a wolf, I'd already heard that Jacob had won the challenge and Sam had apparently had some kind of breakdown, so I was sure things were an absolute mess. I'd heard it in Jacob's thoughts—and I wasn't sure what I could do about _Sam_, I was pretty sure he was just paying the fiddler, finally having to face Emily's death. The pack, though, I could help with. Jacob was going to have quite a struggle on his hands, probably no stability there for a really long time. And hey, sometimes the pack listened to me.

As for priorities, though, no question. Maybe I could help later, sure, fine. Now, I as a little busy walking into the mouth of Hell. And if this was Hell, we'd come to the gate—a large carved wood door at the end of the last turn, looking almost too heavy to open.

If you were human, that was. Dimitri put a hand on the door and pushed, and it swung open with an appropriately creepy long creak. I was imagining another tunnel, maybe a catacomb, more stone and brick at any rate. Instead I abruptly got a palace. Everything was suddenly plush, gold-plated, but not ostentatious—perfectly tasteful and artistic, perfectly, expensively decorated all the way to the chandeliers. Everything done in red and brone and gold.

But you couldn't pay attention to the upholstery, not with the three men standing on the other side of the room. They drew the eye, to say the least. I saw them and the first thing I thought was, people aren't like this anymore. They were a breathless bit of history, a painting, a preservation. Lords and ladies at the end of a hall, still life. They had the faded coloring of old artwork but with life pulsing through them, a dark-eyed sharky vitality. They had a choking presence, an electric induced paralysis—the quality that snakes have when they look at mice, whatever it is in their eyes that makes prey freeze through every vein and bone.

I tipped my head back and kept walking, calling on my natural bitchiness for courage—these guys thought they were so great, they thought they were so cool? Well, their hair was stupid. And they wore weird clothes. They weren't so scary.

I knew them by description—Marcus, Caius, Aro—tall, pale, evil, most easily identified by hair color. I labeled them in my mind. Flanked on either side by their legions of creepy, hooded guards, creepiest of which were the two unnaturally pretty children standing on their right and left. I shuddered internally but didn't let it show. _You are not afraid of them, _I reminded my face and body language. Appearance was going to be very important right about now. _You are not afraid of them. _

As I walked toward them, one of them even drew back—Caius, white hair—like _he _was afraid of _me. _Well, perhaps not afraid, but at least repulsed. Physically repelled by my presence. The leader, Aro, laid a hand on his shoulder as I halted in front of them, as if to reassure him in some way. Reassure him of what? I wasn't exactly going to spring and bite his head off. I mean, that would be nice, but this was not a kamikaze mission. There was something I had to get out of here alive.

Dimitri dropped to a kneel the moment we stopped walking, but I didn't move—just stood there in front of them and crossed my arms. Radiating bitchiness from every pore. "Well?" I said. "I'm here. What the _hell_ do you want?"

"So it _is _true," Aro murmered, stepping forward to look me over as if I were a mildly interesting sort of new invention. "A female werewolf. Fascinating." Behind him, my eye caught on Heidi's blonde hair as she shook it out, looking pleased with herself.

"So I've been told," I said crankily. Jaw jutted aggressively forward, like _you want to make something of it? _

"Look, Caius," he said, pointing at me as if he were barely aware of me speaking, of me being living at all. "See the bone structure. Similar to male werewolves, but do you see the structural differences? There, in the joints and the spine."

"Aro, if you are _quite _finished," Caius hissed. "You know very well I don't appreciate werewolves."

"But see the way she holds herself," Aro continued. "How she leans all her weight on her heels. Extraordinary."

"Aro," Dimitri informed me over my shoulder, "is a bit of a collector."

A _collector._ Like I was some sort of rare stamp. "Okay, that's about enough of that," I broke in. "I _am_ here for a reason."

Aro looked surprised. "You're here because I wanted you here."

"I'm here because I chose to come here," I corrected icily. "Believe me, if I didn't want to be here, you could not have caught me."

"That's certainly one theory," he said, leaning back, amused. God! Smug, self-absorbed, half-smiling eyebrow-raising _vampires! _There was absolutely nothing worse on the planet. "So, Leah Clearwater. Why are you here?"

Oh good, an easy one. "I'm here for Spencer Weston."

There was a few beats of surprised silence, then Heidi's laughed softly over to the left. "Something funny, dear?" Caius asked her, still not taking his eyes off me. He might be afraid of me, he might not. But he was certainly considering me a threat in the way that most of the others weren't.

"Spencer Weston." Heidi explained. "He _is _cute, isn't he?"

The quiet, bored one, Marcus, had snaked his hand suddenly forward to touch Aro on the shoulder, with a look on his face like he was trying to communicate something. "Is that so?" Aro said aloud, seeming to reply to whatever had been said. "How interesting."

"That's really creepy and rude," I snapped. "Tell me what's going on."

"Marcus here can read relationships," Aro informed me, making me instantly think _very bad, very bad. _I had wanted to play this cool and now it didn't look like an option. "And from what he says—it seems we have inadvertently gotten hold of your one true love, Miss Clearwater."

"Yes," I said steadily. "You seem to have done that."

"Well," he said, leaning back, thoroughly enjoying himself. "What do you plan to do about it?"

That was the question, wasn't it? What did I plan to do about it? I had been thinking about it for hours now, about what I could possibly possibly do. There wasn't a lot. Dozens and dozens of the most powerful vampires in the world, and him human right in the middle. No possible way to get him out in one piece, right?

Wrong. There might be one way. But it was sort of a crazy, stupid way, and yesterday I wouldn't have even considered it.

I always told myself I played the victim card because I was the victim. I told myself I had good reason to be angry and bitter and mean. That I had an _excuse _to be mean. But the truth was, for the last two years, three months, and twelve days, it had really been all about me. Me being selfish. Me being childish, me being hurt and unable to deal with it. Now for the first time I was not the first person in my own mind. My own good was not the first thing I thought of. And I knew exactly what I needed to do.

I knelt down in front of the three men, and looked down at the floor. Didn't look them in the eyes so that I wouldn't screw this up. I absolutely could not screw this up. "I'll trade you," I said.

"I'm sorry," Aro said. "You'll what?"

"I'll trade you," I repeated evenly. "I want a trade. Me for him. You take me and you let him go."

Suddenly he was enjoying himself so very much more. Was that a real smile I saw on Aro's face? "And why," he asked carefully, "would we want you?"

"You said you're a collector," I said. "_Collect _me.Do whatever you want with me. Stuff me, mount me, put me in your foyer. I don't care. Just let him go." I could barely say the word. Just was not really used to it. But—Spencer in danger, Spencer dead any second. I could do anything. "Please."

"Hmm," Aro said, thoughtful, delighted. Staring down at me from where he stood at the top of the stairs. "Interesting."


	31. Chapter 31

I had never really thought much about dying. It was just one of those things that was off in the future in a non-tangible way, like marriage or taxes. It was one of those things that always happened to everyone else, like house break-ins. I was nineteen. It just was not real to me. Even though I was constantly getting into dangerous situations, fighting for my life and such, it was just—I was a teenager, okay? I was invincible.

Feeling a little less invincible at the moment, though. Because I'd just essentially bared my neck to a room full of hungry vampires, and there wasn't a lot more real it could get. My life wasn't technically flashing before my eyes yet, but I assumed that would come. I almost hoped it wouldn't, there wasn't a ton I wanted to review. I guess I hadn't had a very happy life. Which sucked, you know, because it was over.

Maybe. I mean, that was definitely one possible outcome. I had just pretty much sold myself into vampire slavery, I'm sure there were a lot of other things that could end up happening here. I was just pretty sure all of them eventually led to death.

Weird, but I couldn't bring myself to get all that freakin' upset about it. It's not like I was suicidal or anything. I had had my moments in the last two years, but I'd gotten over it. I wouldn't have swallowed any pulls or jumped off any buildings, but this, I felt okay about. I knew I was doing the right thing.

"Please," I repeated steadily. "Anything."

"Aro, you're not seriously considering this," Caius said, aghast. "We cannot have a _werewolf _in our palace!"

"Caius," Aro purred. "Do you hear what she's offering? This is a once in a lifetime opportunity."

"_Aro,_" Caius snarled. "I'll kill her myself. Five more minutes and I'll kill her myself."

"Okay, fine," Aro sighed. Didn't really seem to choked up about it either way. "Sorry, Miss Clearwater, it looks like I can't take you up on that deal. I would have hated to let go of Spencer Weston, in any case. I think it's all for the best."

"Wait, wait, wait," I said, getting back to my feet. "What are you saying?"

"You're a werewolf," he shrugged gracefully. "We are vampires. There are rules about what vampires are to do to werewolves. I apologize for getting your hopes up. Guards!"

Okay, _now _my life was flashing before my eyes, flitting from playground to graduation in a split second, every sordid day of it running in front of my eyes like a film reel. No. _No. _Absolutely not. I could offer my life for Spencer's, sure, I could do that, I could make sure he was safe and give everything I had to make it that way. Yes. I could die like that. But I could not die like this. I was getting absolutely nothing in return, and Spencer was still in danger, and I was _not going to die like this._

"Oh no, I don't think so," I snarled, slid between the two hooded guards who were approaching, and jumped for Aro.

No, I really didn't think I could take them. I'd heard all the stories about the freaky abilities that the Volturi collected around them, I knew any number of them could take me down with nothing more than a look. But I thought maybe—if I just got to the leader.

It sort of worked. Aro was standing far too close to me, foolishly close, and I was able to get my hands on his head and shoulder and drag him around into a headlock, getting his body between me and the rest of them in clear I'll-tear-his-head-off-right-here-and-now body language, snarling at the rest of them. Of course, there was more to worry about than physical danger.

"Jane!" Caius yelled, throwing his hand out to the small, pale girl at his side, and the look in her child eyes I knew I was _screwed._

"No!" Aro said sharply. "Don't move. Don't move, any of you."

I had thought I was in control of him, seeing as I was the one who had him in a headlock. But in an instant I suddenly felt painfully exposed, scrutinized—like he had sawed the top of my head off and was picking through my brain, thought by thought. A thousand times more intrusive than pack-mind, a thousand times worse. I knew he could see everything. He had his hand pressed flat on my leg and he was seeing absolutely everything of me.

I would not have classified my life as a comedy. A farce, maybe, or even a tragedy, but I would not have thought it was funny at all. Apparently Aro disagreed, because as he searched through my thoughts, the first thing he did was laugh. I felt his throat move under my arm as he laughed—everyone was still collected around him, tense, not amused, and I shared their sentiment. I was, after all, the one being laughed at.

"Oh, you _are _a mess, Miss Clearwater," he said as loudly as he could through my hold. "I've never read such a life."

"Glad you enjoyed it," I growled. "Now you listen to me. I want to see Spencer. I want you to let me leave with him. Do it or I'll rip your head off, you know I will."

"Dimitri," Aro said easily. "Take her to Spencer."

"Aro, you cannot be serious," Caius complained.

"Trust me, brother," Aro said quietly, and I could feel his smile in the muscles of his neck. "We can afford to give Miss Clearwater what she wants."

No one backed off, and they all stared at Aro like he was crazy. But Dimitri stepped forward and opened the door in the back, waiting politely for me like some kind of escort. I didn't move for a few seconds—making sure that they weren't going to decide to kill me, after all—and then carefully pulled my arm from around his neck, stepping away from him.

"Go ahead," he said, smiling. He was so _pleased _with himself, so _amused. _There was a catch here somewhere, something was wrong. I should be dead. "Your love awaits you."

But if Spencer was through that door, then no catch could possibly matter. I walked through the door and tried not to think about what those inevitable consequences might be. I brushed past Dimitri and walked quickly down the hall where he was leading, through a series turns to an eventual, smaller, door.

Even before we went in the back room I could hear the sounds from it—throated screams muffled through the door, running chills straight up my back because I _recognized _that voice, even through the door, even screaming. _Spencer_. Spencer, Spencer, Spencer. I nearly knocked Dimitri over in my sudden desperation to get through the door.

It _was _Spencer—in the middle of the room and strapped to a table, twisting and thrashing, in obvious intense pain. I saw his back arch as I came in the room, pulling against the restraints holding him there. A livid crescent bite mark at his throat.

"No," I said. "God, no."

I knew exactly why they had let me leave. It must have seemed a hilarious joke to Aro—the werewolf in love with the vampire. They knew that in a matter of hours Spencer would _be_ a vampire, a confederate, an enemy to my entire race. I'm sure they figured that once he killed me he would be back.

We were in some terrible hotel on the outskirts of the town, I didn't even remember the name, I couldn't think about much right now. It was taking all my energy and attention just to watch him scream and convulse, cuffed to the cheap hotel bed—changing into something that I knew and hated, could not stand. I felt hysterical, entirely out of control. I felt like sliding down the wall and burying my head in my arms and crying for pretty much the rest of my life. This was impossible. This was a brand _new_ kind of impossible, a world record of impossibility. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do.

I walked to the other side of the room, close enough to Spencer that his body snapped toward me as I passed, his eyes blazing bright red like a disease, like an injury. He was snarling, trying to bite me, and him not even a full vampire yet. He was going to be a monster, and that was for sure. I knew that I was supposed to kill him.

I picked up the receiver on the old, yellowed phone and dialed, tapping my finger on the bridge of it as it rang. "Carlisle Cullen, please."

"Who is this?"

"Leah Clearwater," I said, grimacing. I'd been hoping they wouldn't ask. "I—need some help."

"I'll get him," the voice said briskly, and got off the line.

As I turned back to Spencer, he broke through the cuff with one hand and lashed out at me, missing by only a few inches—I grabbed his wrist and held it, keeping him still as I waited for the doctor. I would hold onto him forever if I had to.

"Don't worry," I told him. "I'm not going anywhere."

_-FIN-_


	32. Chapter 32

WRITER'S NOTE: Okay, I know I have been all over the map (haaaa. No pun intended) and I apologize for that-basically at this point I'm just writing what I have inspiration for, which has become difficult when it won't freaking' stay still. I do keep getting drawn back to this story, though, so I think I'm going to get into everything that comes between that last scene and the epilogue. I'm actually taking down the epilogue altogether for now-I have it saved and will tack it back on at the end if it still applies! Thanks for bearing with me and my sharp right turns, and just let me know if that's confusing or you have questions! Here we go again.

x x x x

The first thing I had done was cancel maid service for the hotel room. In fact, a hotel wasn't the best or most secure place to go at all-hotel walls were notoriously thin, for one thing, and Spencer had been doing a lot of screaming in agony. Frankly, I was surprised that no one had called the police or anything yet, but at the very least I'd managed to find us a hotel that didn't seem to have all that many people in it, and one that was as far from the center of town as I had been able to get him without him biting my head off.

He was crazy; he was out of control-I didn't know how long he'd be like this, I hadn't paid nearly enough attention to information about vampires and the way that they changed. If you were a werewolf, that became very simple, easily outlined with color-coded diagrams: if there was a vampire, you killed them. If it was a newborn vampire, you were more careful because those motherfuckers were crazy, but you killed them anyway, _more_ so, if that was possible. We had had very thorough instruction on how to _fight _them-after all, we'd had to face an army of them before, I knew firsthand just how unpleasant they could be-but certainly not how to take care of them.

Certainly I was guessing that there probably weren't any handbooks for how to be in love with them.

It was probably both a good and bad thing that I'd already imprinted on Spencer before he was changed-I don't know if I could have fallen in love with him like this, but since it was a previously-forged bond, now I had no choice. It had occurred to me at least once that if I _hadn't_ been in love with him, it was very likely that no one would have come for him at all-but I still couldn't help being absolutely horrified at what he'd become. The color of his eyes that I'd loved had been completely obliterated by vicious red now-he was snapping his teeth at me like a wild animal every time I got close, he was completely untouchable.

I'd taken whatever handcuffs the Volturi had been using to hold him-they probably hadn't wanted me to do that, but they had been smart to get out of my way at that point. I'd been a wounded, newly heartbroken and devastated woman once before, I had practice, and I knew how to go up in flames and take everything else with me. They'd held up all right under his constant onslaught, though I'd had to consistently change what he was cuffed _to_ as he'd broken through bedposts and radiators and furniture.

I'd never thought of him as frightening at all-he'd been very human when I'd met him, unassuming-he didn't ask for pity or protection but he'd clearly been helpless in his situation, a flimsy much-too-mortal thing stuck as a pawn in a war between monsters. I remember the first time I'd ever seen him, and he'd been cuffed to the bar, and that had been enough to hold him. This time he was fighting it-and I really wasn't sure if it was going to hold him at all.

I knew what it was like already to be in love with something that was painful, that kept hurting you the closer you got to it, but I hadn't yet been in love with something that was _dangerous_ and actively trying to kill me. I had no idea how to handle this-I was across the room when I wasn't actively restraining him, I didn't know how to touch him and not get bones broken or bitten-I was starving, I hadn't eaten in more than a day, and I hadn't slept, knew I needed to watch him or he _would_ escape, and _no one else was going to. _

I knew he'd be hungry too-starving, if I remembered correctly-but I couldn't even think about getting him _blood_, the thought made me sick. And so I was doing what everyone else had been doing to him for years and years-keeping him away from the things that he wanted and needed; I had become his captor, and I was telling myself it was for his own good.

Carlisle had said that he was coming as quickly as he could-I hated that I had to ask a vampire for help, it grated on me, but I knew that he was the only person who had a possibility of dealing with this, leveling Spencer out again. It was possible that he'd never be the same, and that I'd be stuck being in love with one of the monsters that I hated and couldn't _stand_ forever-but I had met the Cullens, I had to at least admit that they could at least have personalities beyond rampaging blood-sucking machines-and there was hope there for me, where there had previously just been contempt.

Either way, Carlisle was hours and hours out, and all I could do was try to contain the situation-try to contain _him_ when he was clearly a thing that had never been meant to be held, pure violence and chaos and _hunger._ I watched his muscles tense and refuse to keep him still, watched him arch like he meant to break his own bones, and I got very used to the sound of his screams. I was across the room with my back against the wall, my knees tucked against my chest with my arms around them, curled up and probably looking very weak or something, but I didn't even care what I looked like right now-I knew he was technically an enemy now, and that he'd probably use any weakness if he found it, but I really didn't think he was looking at me right now.

At one point someone knocked on the door, but I ignored it-barely looked over, because if they thought there was any way in hell I was opening it, they were sadly mistaken. There was no door hanger for "Privacy please! Vampire being born" but they were going to have to be content with being totally ignored.

I must have fallen asleep sometime into the second day-I had been trying not to, but apparently "whatever, I'll do that later" wasn't a compelling enough argument for a body that was already totally exhausted from racing here in a thoroughly romantic-comedy way after the man that I loved, with the slight difference that I had been a wolf and they didn't generally make movies about that, and also that I'd been too _late_. If I had been Meg Ryan, I was pretty sure everything would have worked out perfectly. Either way I was tired, more tired than I wanted to admit, and even though my significant practice in lying to myself did come in handy sometimes, it also made it so that I damn near snuck up on myself sometimes.

I didn't remember falling asleep-but I did remember waking up, very clearly, it was very violent and sharp, like in the way you wake up when you were dreaming of falling from a very high place. This was driven mostly by a sudden recollection that hit me as I was coming conscious again, though-that I _should not_ have fallen asleep, and that it was possible that things could be in total shambles when I opened my eyes. I came awake scrambling, looking for Spencer-and at first, the silence in the room seemed to be a _very_ bad sign-that he was gone, that he'd escaped, that things had all blown up because I'd been _stupid _enough to close my eyes.

I didn't even hear the sound of his breathing-but then I remembered that he didn't really do that anymore, and after another moment I caught sight of him-remembered that I'd cuffed him down by the base of the bed, mostly because he'd broken everything else by now. He was quiet-which was different, and almost ominous-he'd stopped screaming but there was still that sense of bright, crackling danger emanating from him, and he was watching me with furious crimson eyes. He was more still than I'd seen him, and I didn't know what to make of that-what it meant, _goddamn _I needed some kind of owner's manual here, but when I met his eyes he shifted slightly, his wrist pulling the cuff against the bar of the bed, rattling the metallic noise into the silence followed by a long, low growl-feral, nothing controlled about it-frightening.

I liked to think that I wasn't easily scared-I'd jumped headlong at a lot of things that were bigger than me and more menacing than me, that seemed to come part and parcel with being the smallest and weakest member of your pack-you had to be scrappier, more fearless, more reckless, and perhaps that was why female executives sometimes got sharp and sharklike, developed reputations for being bitches. I had been that way-difficult to out-vicious, difficult to scare, but there was something about this transition from nice-guy Spencer, good-guy Spencer, sense-of-humor Spencer who told me I looked like I'd been painted and who I was in love with-to _this_-that I was somehow, impossibly still in love with.

"Let me go."

He surprised me when he spoke-I hadn't known whether he'd do that, had no idea exactly how much of an animal he'd be and for how long-and his voice didn't sound the same, rough and broken from the screaming, grinding and rough-edged. There was so much heat in it, so little control, and I couldn't help contrasting the sound of it with the wry, easy sarcasm that I'd gotten used to, and I wondered if he'd ever sound like that again.

The surprise of it threw me for a moment, but when I opened my mouth to answer him finally I found my own voice a little stuck from disuse-had to clear my throat first. "No."

It had seemed a pretty obvious answer to me-of course I wasn't going to let him go, and I wondered if _what_, he'd intended to have a conversation about that? It became clear that he really _hadn't_, the moment that I answered him-he snarled, lunging forward restlessly and clattering the cuff again against the metal base that was already bent in towards him with his efforts to get free. "I'm _hungry_." It was a growl with a hint of a whine, and I knew that had to be true-knew that much about them.

I didn't know what to say to that-I was hungry too, but it was hardly comparable. I had no idea what he was feeling, it would be a lie to say that I did. "I know," I settled with finally, awkwardly. I would have comforted him somehow if I could have-put my arms around him, but I was pretty sure if I got any limbs that close right now, I was going to lose them.

He used to be very easy to talk to, but not to overstate the obvious-things had changed. I had already had no idea what to do with him, but I had even less idea what to do with this new slightly changed incarnation of him-I hadn't expected him to say things to me, and especially not things I didn't know the answer to. He seemed to settle for a moment, and I started to get back into resignation as well-I knew I couldn't handle this well, I'd already known that. I was waiting for someone who could-I just had to hold onto the situation until then.

Of course, historically, I hadn't done a great job of keeping things together-I couldn't even get _myself_ straightened out, much less deal with someone else's issues . It was rarer still that I actually _wanted_ to, but Spencer was proving to be a thoroughly difficult exception in all possible ways.

There was another knock on the door. Spencer reacted more than I did-turning towards it and snarling again, that low growl that seemed to have become a natural sound for him, that stood the hairs on the back of my neck on edge, that got every werewolf instinct screaming that he was an enemy and I should kill him-except of course the werewolf instincts that were telling me to be in love. I understood his new attention-there was someone with blood and a heartbeat behind that door, and surely that was all he was thinking about right now-I barely looked, I still wasn't opening the door, whoever it was-didn't look at all, in fact, until I heard just who it was.

_"Polizia!"_

The instant reaction was panic-that was a one-syllable cue for _very bad things_, I hadn't really thought that things could get _worse_ but clearly I should have been more creative. I glanced over at Spencer, instinctively, because I needed someone to bounce that panic off, someone to listen to my _what do we do?_ even if they didn't have an answer-and caught his eyes blazingly bright red and flatly starving, insensible. He'd kept me sane in the time that I'd been here, he'd been sympathetic and helpful and understanding, but it was clear that wasn't the case anymore. I was on my own.


	33. Chapter 33

I hadn't been handling this situation well and I knew that-I'd been frozen with uselessness, immobile in the face of what had happened, and that wasn't typical of me, but it was just that my usual reaction was to disaster was to be a disaster right back at it-to tear into things and destroy them, take them to pieces. Spencer being a _vampire_ was only that much more of an argument for handling this just the same way-I could have killed him immediately-it would have been difficult with his strength and volatility right now, but I could have done it. It was probably a solution that someone would suggest to me sooner or later, in fact-but probably not anyone who was imprinted. Even if they were a little thrown off by the fact of being imprinted to a _vampire_, they'd understand the whole fixation and polar realignment thing-why that really, really wasn't an option.

And so instead I was stuck with him as the extreme, extreme exaggeration of any unhealthy relationship-he was terribly bad for me, he was _dangerous_ and possibly event fatal-but I couldn't let him go. I was stuck here doing nothing about it, and that had been slowly driving me crazy-but then again, I was probably used to the feeling.

The moment that someone knocked on the door and announced that they were the police, and that I should open up, though-that was the moment that all dramatic angst and impotent heartbreak fell away to _holy hell, what do I do?_ Blind panic was almost preferable to the waiting, though, at least there was some action and motion in it-the moment that I heard the word "polizia" from the other side of the door, I was moving. I might not speak much Italian but that one wasn't terribly difficult to figure out-I'd been surprised temporarily that no one had been called here to find out what was going on with the uncontrollable screaming and breaking furniture, but that thought had been replaced by other important things since then. "Shit!" I was on my feet in an instant, stumbling, looking frantically around the room as if hoping to see some sort of way that I could solve this problem, that I could _hide_ him quickly and somehow make this room look like anything but a disaster area.

Nothing jumped magically to mind-my eyes fell on the closet for a moment, remembering the time he'd shoved me into _his_ in London to keep me from being seen, but he was such a dangerous thing to touch right now-I seriously doubted I could get him shut into anything very quickly, that would require a lot of unlocking and locking and careful handling and corralling. The Italian police didn't seem inclined to wait that long. "_Polizia! Apra il portello!"_

_"I don't know what that means!"_ I yelled back at the door, unhelpfully, but my nerves were frayed already and they were making a very bad situation a _lot_ worse, and I did _not_ appreciate it. That dangerous stillness was falling away from Spencer now, he was moving-eyes fixed on the door, pulling more insistently against the cuff, his feet bracing against the floor. I was closer to him now, trying to approach carefully while I figured out what to do with him, but the instant I got close he turned and _snapped_ at me, and I had to pull my hand back. "Dammit! _Spencer!_"

_"Stiamo venedo all'interno! Punto a partire dal portello!"_

If I had spoken Italian, I would have known that meant that they were coming in-after a moment it didn't really matter, though-when something slammed into the door and the lock broken and the door swung open, I pretty much got the gist. There were four officers, uniformed, guns drawn-they poured into the room immediately, totally unsuspecting of what was really going on here and in more danger than they had any idea-Spencer's hand lashed out for them as they came in, and I just barely managed to catch it and drag it back, waving frantically to the officers that this was _really not as good of an idea as they thought it was_. The closer they got, the more violent Spencer's thrashing was getting-not a restlessness anymore but a furious, intense hunger that was going to be difficult to deny. "Get _back_! Get back, he is _not_ safe!"

Either they understood as little English as I did Italian, or they just really didn't care-one of the men circled behind and grabbed for me. I probably should have warned them that technically, _I_ really wasn't all that safe as well-I was not what I looked, I was too small and female to be able to pull away from the officer the way that I did, no real effort but _impatience_, frantic and upset at how this was unraveling. He did manage to distract me and pull me away for long enough that I lost my grip on Spencer, though, and he was coming at the other officers with another sharp lunge-strong and sudden enough to break through the metal bar the way he'd been breaking through things for two days, snapping it cleanly in half. The cuff held but it was dangling uselessly around his wrist as he moved-quickly, naturally predatorily, slamming into the nearest man and taking him down in a tumble before I could get there-biting back a reaction and pushing the man _off_ me, perhaps too violently but I wasn't going to worry too much about his safety right now because he was the one that had prevented me from getting there, robbed me of those three seconds I would have needed to pull Spencer off before he leaned in and bit into the man's neck with his teeth.

And suddenly the officers understood what I had been _trying_ to tell them from the moment they'd gotten in the door-that Spencer was _dangerous_, and that he wasn't the kind of dangerous they were used to. Most of them fell back instinctively with shouts, and more Italian, in the tones of someone swearing a blue streak-one of them had the initiative to aim his gun at Spencer and pull the trigger, but the bullet hit harmlessly and bounced to the floorboards-he probably hadn't yet discovered how newly close to invincible he was, but the shot did catch his attention, which certainly wasn't good for the man who had fired it. He looked up with another snarl-perhaps the reason that I hadn't expected him to speak was that this coarse, feral noise sounded so much more _natural_ to him, so much closer to indicating what he could do-and that was enough of an excuse for him to change his focus again, he was so damn _fast_, and coming at the man who'd shot at him now with his colleague's blood in his mouth already, all down the front of his shirt and on his hands, and I had to change my own course from pulling him off the now-unmoving policeman to saving a different one altogether-the ones who were lucky enough to be closer to the door and not actively drawing attention were already heading for it, spooked and terrified by the all of the _blood_, on Spencer's mouth, splashing on the floor, splattering on the wall.

I didn't think to shift when I went after him, and maybe I should have-it was just that it was such a final and such a combative move-the main weapon that we had in wolf form was our _teeth_, meant for tearing vampires apart. I did not want to tear Spencer apart-perhaps should have, and didn't. As it was, I came after him nearly human-stronger and much more able to survive him, but it wasn't enough. He seemed to notice me only after I grabbed hold of him and started to drag him away, like he'd noticed the gun only after the bullet had hit him-he struck back immediately, turning fast with a blind hit with nothing but strength behind it-but it was a _lot_ of strength, that was the one thing that the newborns had going for them. I should have shifted-I didn't, and that was the reason that I hit the wall on the other side of the room hard enough to break the drywall with my shoulders and the back of my head.

We healed quickly-of everything, or at least everything physical-I couldn't have blacked out for more than thirty seconds, it was like closing my eyes. This time, though, when I opened them, that immediate anxiety and paranoia that everything had probably gone wrong while I'd been out was entirely, entirely justified. There was blood everywhere-_everywhere_, they were going to have to reupholster the furniture, replace the carpet, definitely replace the wallpaper, in which case Spencer had probably done them a favor because it likely hadn't been touched since the seventies.

Spencer was gone. He'd left three bodies behind him, likely with not much of that blood left in them, but he wasn't there-I knew instantly, in trite and sappy bound imprinted ways but also in the way that he had become something that you couldn't take your eyes off, could catch your attention and terrify you and try to kill you every moment. In fact, I was surprised I wasn't dead-I'd been helpless for at least one moment there, but then again, it had long ago been shown that vampires weren't interested in werewolf blood. Apparently we didn't taste good.

What that did mean, though, was that very clearly he wasn't interested in keeping anyone else safe. I hadn't seen newborns quite this new before, but I'd seen their savagery, their lack of control. I'd taken responsibility for him in some ridiculous way but I also had a responsibility to protect vampires from killing humans-and wherever he was, he was definitely going to be doing a lot of that.

I got up quickly, no stumbling or catching myself-whatever minor head trauma he'd inflicted, it was already gone, and I wasn't walking, I was _running_, I didn't have a single thought for discretion because clearly that had already gone out the window with the vampire massacre and all. I barely got outside of the hotel before I was shifting-we were on the outskirts of town anyway, I'd tried to get us as much privacy as I possibly could and that was paying off now-I couldn't even say that I hadn't thought of _this_ exact situation when I'd gotten the hotel room-that I might not be able to hang onto him. Obviously it was the worst-case scenario, but I was good at thinking of those, I had not been anything like an _optimist_ in some time.

Shifting had quickly come back again from something to be resisted to something natural, even refreshing-it was raining hard when I got outside, but my wolf form was so much more capable of dealing with that, had better sight and surer footing, could pick up what wasn't completely washed away of that burning vampire scent. I was entirely focused on it-he seemed to be heading east, away from the city, and chances were that he was moving _fast_, he would be discovering exactly how fast he could move. Gradually I became aware of the other minds at the back of my own-usually that realization was more immediate, but perhaps I usually just cared more. At the moment, if you weren't Spencer, you were a waste of my time.

_Leah?_ That was Jacob, I could tell-everything else was just confused whisper thoughts and recognition, but Jacob would have some better idea of what was going on. Then again, a lot of it would also be new to him-such as the important points of Spencer Is Now A Vampire and Leah Seems To Have Lost Track Of Him. I could feel him sifting through that-and then, the inevitable reaction. _...Shit._

_Leah?_ That was Seth-clearly confused, concerned, and I could feel him in my thoughts as well even though he would have so much less context for it-felt and nearly saw the knowledge of my imprint and my terribly exciting saga of death and destruction over the last few weeks-perversely, resentfully, I felt that they shouldn't be as surprised by any of it as they seemed to be. How would they even know to recognize my life if it wasn't a total disaster? _Shit!_

_Seth!_ Somehow it was okay for Jacob to say it, but not my little brother, it sounded wrong. _Language! God!_

_You're not Mom,_ was his immediate response-no real malice in it, an old argument. _Speaking of, she's wondering when you're going to call. ...Should I, um-?_

_Do _not_ tell her about this. _

_Okay, okay. _A moment of silence, more casual invasion of my thoughts. I would never get used to this-I was already in a worse mood than I had been, though it would have been difficult to improve on a runaway monster lover. _When do I get to meet him?_

_He's a _vampire. Paul. His mental voice was easy to recognize, if only for the way it had of disrupting absolutely anything else that was going on. _You're not going to _meet_ him. Leah's going to take care of this, aren't you, Leah? _

_I hope you don't mean what I think you mean, because I will _kick your ass. I knew what he meant, and it pissed me off-my mood was rapidly deteriorating now into the destructive bitchiness that I was used to. I'd felt different the last few days, I'd been calmer, and it was easy to think that it had to do with the pack mind-but it had probably been Spencer. Too bad he wouldn't be doing much calming me down anymore. _Dammit! _Dammit!

Not directed at Paul, for once-I was losing Spencer's scent by the second, it just wasn't holding up in the rain. Luckily, I didn't have to explain that one, either-they knew. _Leah, do you-_ Jacob again, but I couldn't read what he was asking right away, he seemed not to have decided. _I could send someone._

_...Huh?_ Poor Seth. He should have been taking notes here.

_Their senses are better than ours. Plus Chase says they know his scent, they've uh-tracked him down before._

_Tell Chase he's an asshole._ I didn't like the reminder of the situation Spencer used to be in, but for the first time an upside of his condition was occurring to me-at the very least, they wouldn't be able to push him around anymore. It might be a little funny to watch their surprise-not enough to balance out all the _downsides_, but still. _...Yeah, okay. You know where I am?_

_I know where you are._

_Hey, you haven't heard from Carlisle, have you?_ It was an off chance, but then again I'd sort of put myself out of communication for a few minutes, and besides-it had suddenly become that much more desperately important that he get here very fast.

_Carlisle _Cullen? The problem with saying weird things was that it immediately made the guys start digging into my thoughts-as if they had any _right? ...No, Leah, I haven't been chatting with any bloodsuckers lately, why? _

_Nothing. Never mind. Tell me if you hear from him, all right? I'm going back for my cell phone. Tell Chase to meet me at the hotel._

_Leah?_ Seth again. _Be careful?_

_Little late for that, Seth. _But he was right-that would have been a good idea. If I'd been at all _careful_, I'd still be back in La Push-none of this would ever have happened. That would have been better...right?


End file.
